BIOGRAPHY
Ivana Radovanović
Ivana Radovanović is a Serbian-born Austrian composer based in Graz. Her music moves between orchestral and chamber writing, live electronics, sound installation and interdisciplinary performance.
Her compositions often engage with personal and collective memory, cultural traditions, and social themes, with a particular focus on emotional expression and the interaction between sound, space and image.
COLLABORATIONS
Emotional expression runs through Radovanović’s work, often alongside traces of folk music and cultural memory from her homeland. She brings these influences into dialogue with contemporary instrumental writing and electronics, exploring themes of vulnerability, transformation and the relationship between the individual and the collective.
Collaboration is central to her stage practice. In works such as Shelter, Overload and Duality, musicians and dancers contribute to a shared process in which music, choreography and the visual character of the performance develop together. These projects have been presented at festivals including Lange Nacht der Bühnen in Linz. Collaborations with Aleksandra Krzekotowska and Seraphim Schuchter have also led to works including My Skin and Sorry, I don’t know that one.
From orchestra to installation
A longstanding collaboration with Tiroler Kammerorchester InnStrumenti has resulted in five commissioned orchestral works: Little Piece for Orchestra (2015), Burj Khalifa (2018), fast eine antwort (2021), The Winner’s Song (2023) and Azure: The Five Elements (2024). fast eine antwort grew from a collaboration with Austrian poet Anja Utler; Burj Khalifa was released on the album Urknall.
Her practice also extends beyond the concert hall. During residencies in Brest and Dresden in 2023, she developed Converging Visions, a sound installation exploring urban memory and reconstruction. More recent ensemble collaborations include Broken Mirror for Ensemble Windkraft and Hautnah for Ensemble Reconsil.
CURRENT DIRECTION
A cycle of rituals
Her ongoing Cycle of Rituals draws on Balkan traditions of rain-calling, winter renewal and mourning. Its first part, Dodola: Ritual for Calling the Rain, was developed with Proxima Centauri through MIXTE Academy in 2026. Alongside the ensemble version, she is developing an interdisciplinary stage performance that brings musicians, a dancer and the audience into a shared ritual space.
Background & recognition
Born in Valjevo, Serbia, in 1994, Radovanović began her musical education at the age of nine, studying piano, solfège and music theory. She later studied composition with Franz Baur at the Tiroler Landeskonservatorium, graduating in 2015.
In 2017, she began her master’s studies at Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, studying composition with Erland Maria Freudenthaler and electronic music with Andreas Weixler. She graduated with distinction in 2020. Her master’s thesis examined how visual elements influence the perception of contemporary music—a question that continues to inform her artistic practice.
Her distinctions include first prize in the male-choir category of the Tiroler Sängerbund competition (2015), recognition for VII Emotions at MusicaFemina Budapest (2020), Austria’s Startstipendium for Music (2021), the Hilde Zach Composition Scholarship (2023), and the Austrian Staatsstipendium for Composition (2025). In 2026, she received a further Austrian composition grant.
She has also been invited by the Mudita festival in Japan to give workshops and lectures on composition, improvisation and computer music as a means of expression.