58th BEMUS in Belgrade until 30 October - Arcadi Volodos, Daniel Lozakovich and the Sofia Philharmonic at Serbia's oldest music festival

Belgrade is in the middle of the 58th edition of BEMUS, the Belgrade Music Festival, running from 17 to 30 October under the motto "Music Above Time". All concerts are at the Kolarac Endowment starting at 8 p.m., and the remaining programme begins on 18 October with the State Symphony Orchestra of Thessaloniki.

BEMUS was founded in 1969 and is considered the oldest and most important music festival in Serbia. The first edition opened with Dragutin Gostuški's overture "Belgrade" and closed with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the Belgrade Philharmonic is among the festival's founders. Since 2002 BEMUS has been a member of the European Festivals Association.

The biggest name this year is Arcadi Volodos, a Russian-born pianist, who gives a solo recital on 28 October. His albums "Live at Carnegie Hall" and "Volodos plays Brahms" won the Gramophone Award for best instrumental recording, the first in 1999, the second in 2018. On 19 October violinist Daniel Lozakovich, who signed to Deutsche Grammophon at 15 and has recorded for Warner Classics since 2024, plays with French pianist David Fray.

The rest of the programme is just as packed: the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra on 20 October, Trio Corda on the 21st, the Sofia Philharmonic on the 24th, the Niš Symphony Orchestra on the 26th and the golden jubilee of the Collegium Musicum academic choir on 29 October. The Belgrade Philharmonic closes the festival on 30 October. Nine evenings of classical music in two weeks, on one stage - how often does Skopje get a line-up like this in one place?

Tickets on tickets.rs range from 1,000 to 3,000 dinars, or roughly 526 to 1,579 denars, with Volodos's recital the most expensive. Packages of ten or more tickets are also on sale, for those planning to follow the festival over several evenings.