Aleksandra Bajde: Self-Portraits in Imaginary Places

The central idea of this new work is to create an abstract, scenic musical piece based on sound, gestures of musicians, contemporary dance and light. The piece explores the connections between sound, gestures and light, and their opposites, such as sound/silence, tension/relaxation, movement/immobility, light/darkness, melody/noise.
The imaginary places – a series of different and contrasting scenes – are therefore created through a complex interplay of different manifestations of these media and their opposites. It is also about sharing one medium with another, for example, to make sound visible through light and to make light audible through sound. In this way, despite the lack of a story, a highly dramatic effect will be produced. As such, the work offers its audience an enriching and multidimensional experience.

Aleksandra Bajde is a Slovenian composer and singer living in Vienna. In her native country she studied the violin, the piano, and classical singing at the Maribor Music and Ballet Conservatory. In 2011, she graduated in Jazz Singing from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. During her music studies, she was selected for an Erasmus Program at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. In 2013, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in a Bachelor’s (Honours) degree program in liberal arts and sciences (with a focus on International Relations and Sociology) from Amsterdam University College. In 2014, she completed a trilingual Master’s program in Advanced European and International Studies at the European Institute in France. In June 2018, she completed her Master’s degree in Composition with distinction at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz.

In 2019, she was granted a Working Scholarship for Composition as well as a “Startstipendium” for Music and Performing Arts by the Federal Chancellery of Austria. In 2020, she was awarded the Theodor Körner Förderpreis for composition and was selected for the European Music Council Fellowship Programme 2020 – 2021. In 2021, she received a Scholarship for Composition by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport of Austria.
She works as the Office and Project Manager at the Austrian Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music.