Portfolio

Commissioned by and in collaboration with Modelo62, with support from Performing Art Fund NL.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As long as political leaders and we, consumers, are not taking responsibility for our pollution through the effects of global capitalism, we continue to destroy our planet while blinding ourselves to our influence with comfort. An artist’s power is limited in the grander scheme of geopolitical decision making, but by focusing efforts towards creating thought-provoking and personally confrontational experiences by sharing the notion of hopefulness in a polluted wasteland, artistic works can invite critical reflection on our consumerist behavior. If we are willing to confront ourselves and take action, we could make a difference.

SUMMARY

Pay To Destroy is an an activistic concert where the audience members’ behaviour influences the musical output. Listeners are invited to partake as “agents of pollution,” whose interaction with the work through imagined transactions irreversibly alters its musical patterns – either polluting the composition to achieve comfort or sacrificing comfort to heal it. To reflect the concept of generational responsibility, the work stores and remembers the choices of the audience so that future performances of the piece carry with it these decisions. Tackling the issue of pollution and the effects of global capitalism on the Earth’s environment, the work seeks to offer a confrontational yet thought-provoking mirror through which the audience can gaze upon their consumerist behaviour and its potential outcomes.

BACKGROUND

In the current digital revolutions it’s easy to delude ourselves in technological exoticism and with the many services we take for granted as being “free of footprint” while in reality they are not. The internet and now the increased use of AI are big ones in this, that cost tremendous amounts of energy and physical space and other resources.

So far, his activistic motivations and actions have been mostly separated from his artistic career. With PTD Petrovic hopes to find ways to utilise his expertise as composer, system developer and performing artist to have an impact on how we consumers relate ourselves to our own comfort and its impact on our home planet.  He is aware that his power to shift thinking is limited, but he will attempt to sharpen our senses nonetheless.

Music composition and mastering all audio for a performance with elements from contemporary dance, installation art and live rap (90 minutes).

Cherish Menzo & GRIP & Frascati Producties

1. Uncanny Landscape
2. Quartered Island
3. Latex Birds
4. Drexciya Under
5. Drexciya Ascension (ft. Michael Nunes)
6. Single Entity
7. Double Goddess (ft. Michael Nunes)
8. Final Anthem

Choosing Freedom is my celebration of letting music ring free. For this purpose I made the instrument GEST to approach my own intuition for the creation and performance of electronic music. GEST transforms hand motions that break a light into digital sound gestures based on pre-composed acoustic sources. 

With this work I  place musical conventions under pressure. This occurs in the sound itself, its narratives and in my presentation of it. The performance covers a set of pieces that each resemble an aspect that I had to let go of, in order to find my freedom:

1. Divided Attention
2. Scattered Perception
3. Emotional Manipulation
4. Arbitrary Expectation
5. Conservative Evasion

Choosing Freedom was a tipping point in my artistic career. This work is presented in smaller and underground venues, but also at local international festivals such as Rewire and Gaudeamus. A concert registration was released at Moving Furniture Records. The album is covered in magazines like Gonzo (NL) and Positionen (GER). An adaption of the last piece toured Europe and Canada as part of the critically acclaimed DARKMATTER. Yet, as a solo performance Choosing Freedom deserves more international presentations. As my contribution to the celebration of expressive emancipation.

The custom-built GEST allows the performer to design and play electronic music in an intuitive way, turning hand gestures and light sensors into an interface for musical expression. It’s an environment for both composing pieces based on audio recordings and performing structures with indeterminate elements.

Choosing Freedom

This solo act (and album) allows the artist to explore the outer edges of music, subverting categorical notions of what music should sound like.

1. Divided Attention
2. Scattered Perception
3. Emotional Manipulation
4. Arbitrary Expectation
5. Conservative Evasion
6. Reminders Reinterpreted

Composed and performed by Gagi Petrovic. This work has been performed at festivals such as, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Rewire, GOLF and Overkill. It will be released in 2021 at Moving Furniture Records. This work has been premiered as ‘GEST x DPB’.

Maya & Gagi: Constellations

1. Conjunctions
2. Reminders
3. Divisions

Composed and performed by Maya Fridman and Gagi Petrovic. These pieces have been performed at festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Soundsofmusic and miscellaneous venues.

Vox Populi

Composed and performed by Petrovic, premiered in June 2021. Made possible by FPK Werkbijdrage Muziekauteur.

Current state of GEST

• Performing solo acts with this instrument (mostly Choosing Freedom)
• Adapting the software for new pieces (e.g. Pay To Destroy)

Solo act for GEST (and voice).

‘Veneer’ sees Petrovic embracing the more conventional role of the singer-songwriter. The song cycle consists of three pieces about social masking.

Setlist:

1. Caged Flight
2. Stolen Time
3. Unshackled

This work is made possible by Performing Arts Fund NL. An electronic interpretation was premiered during Rewire Festival 2022. In 2024 Petrovic revised this work to include live singing, under the new name ‘Veneer’.

The exhibition by Aimée Zito Lema in Oude Kerk covers its politically turbulent history.

For the finissage of her exhibition and the goodbye celebration of the artistic director, my job was to musically reinterpret 26 poems based on 6 questions and 200 official letters revolving around recent tumult regarding contemporary art presented in the church.

A new piece for GEST and 5 poets.

Concept:

• For the crowdfunding of underground music label Moving Furniture Records featured artists engaged in new collaborations to support the campaign. Gagi Petrovic worked with Matthijs Kouw on a new intuitive piece.

Released on ‘Moving Music: sounds from the rocking chair’ at Moving Furniture Records.

Choosing Freedom is my celebration of letting music ring free. For this purpose I made the instrument GEST to approach my own intuition for the creation and performance of electronic music. GEST transforms hand motions that break a light into digital sound gestures based on pre-composed acoustic sources. 

With this work I  place musical conventions under pressure. This occurs in the sound itself, its narratives and in my presentation of it. The performance covers a set of pieces that each resemble an aspect that I had to let go of, in order to find my freedom:

1. Divided Attention
2. Scattered Perception
3. Emotional Manipulation
4. Arbitrary Expectation
5. Conservative Evasion

Choosing Freedom was a tipping point in my artistic career. This work is presented in smaller and underground venues, but also at local international festivals such as Rewire and Gaudeamus. A concert registration was released at Moving Furniture Records. The album is covered in magazines like Gonzo (NL) and Positionen (GER). An adaption of the last piece toured Europe and Canada as part of the critically acclaimed DARKMATTER. Yet, as a solo performance Choosing Freedom deserves more international presentations. As my contribution to the celebration of expressive emancipation.

Composed for Dodecavember 2018, organised by composer Hinse Mutter.

Concept:

• carte blanche: algorithmic composition in Ableton, in celebration of dodecaphony.

Duration: 5 minutes.

Premiered in YouTube stream.

Composition for voice and soprano saxophone.

Concept:

• Capturing stylistic elements from ‘De Stijl’. Based on poetry by ‘Anthony Kok – Stilte + Stem’
• Composed in one day, as part of the ‘Eendagsliederen’ project.

Duration: 3 minutes

Premiered during Grachtenfestival, aired on Radio 4.

Organiser of, and composer/singer for, concerts with new music. Assistance in artistic direction of Albert Manders, fundraising, budgeting, stagehand and performance.

Members:

• Albert Manders, composition and flutes
• Hinse Mutter, composition and double bass
• Gagi Petrovic, composition and voice (bass-baritone)
• Vera van der Bie, violin
• Daniel Boeke, bass clarinet
• Anne Veinberg, piano
• Jelena Popovic, piano

Concept & Composition by Zeno van den Broek and Gagi Petrovic. For vocal ensemble (SSBBB), live electronics (performative objects) and organ.

Background

In the summer of 2014 Gaudeamus brought together audio-visual artist Zeno van den Broek (b. 1982) and composer Gagi Petrovic (b. 1986) and commissioned a large scale composition project. The electro-acoustic piece Ob-literate is the duo’s resulting work for organ, vocal ensemble, electronics and custom built performative objects – world premiered at Nicolaikerk, Utrecht on 6 March 2016.

Drawing inspiration from articles revolving around the philosophical text The Destructive Character by Walter Benjamin, furthermore distilling words and concepts from interpretations by Dick Raaijmakers and the poem Étui by Adam Staley Groves, the two artists constructed a work which is intense and alienating in its deconstructive dismantling to create space for something altogether new.

“Starting out Ob-literate presents itself as a dense, intangible moving mass of sound. Little cracks offer a view to what’s hidden beneath. Following an explosion, constituent elements are thrown wide, moving through separating paths – towards isolation. On their own all ‘particules’ find their equilibrium, without actively engaging in relations, although there might be some harmony or friction. A stray element deserts and the balance is rocked into implosion. High pressure forces connections, leading to collapse on itself. With the veil of obscurance lifted: the mark has been made, but damage was done by uncovering the underlying message and the disastrous disintegration is revealed. The storm of this exhilarating centrifugal composition throws up atomised memories of melodic syntax, hints of a phrase or just a word. In Ob-literate these tiny points reference musical coherence and terra firma in a buzzing rhizomatic web of contingent yet tightly controlled aural material. Ultimately Ob-literate blows holes in card houses of fixed ideas or walled-off bubbles – throws open windows and points to the clearest of blue skies as a tabula rasa for our cacophonous times.” [Liner notes by Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg]

Album Release

Ob-literate has been released on vinyl through the new collaboration between Gaudeamus and Unsounds: SOUNDS OF THE YOUNG AVANT-GARDE VOL. 02. Gaudeamus foundation and the independent label Unsounds are indispensable actors in the avant-garde and new music field, operating internationally from their common base in the Netherlands. With the Sounds of the Young Avant-Garde Vinyl Collection, they collaborate to present some of the most forward moving sounds in contemporary music, as they are created today by young and mid-career makers. The works are original commissions by Gaudeamus and are selected, produced and released by Unsounds. This joint venture secures a new lease of life for these works apart from and beyond the live music stages, ensuring the most thrilling music of our day and age is preserved as veritable future classics.

Ob-literate was commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek // Supported by Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Fonds21 and Dutch Performing Arts NL.

Composition and music production of electro-acoustic work.

Duration: 20 minutes, in 4 parts.

Concept:

• Dysprosody is a very rare speech disorder that can manifest itself in several ways, such as unconventional changes in pitch, volume and rhythm while talking. This could be seen as a nuisance and unwanted deviation on established ways of communication, or as a new opportunity for truly expressing oneself. This is the result of my first attempt on the latter.

Released on double EP ‘dp[a] + hsh’ at Moving Furniture Records, on CD and digital.

Composition and software design for flute and speaker.

Concept:

• A spiritual exploration of how words guide a musician’s interpretation of loaded words. The music is based on poetry by Gagi Petrovic:
• • There is nothing.
  • Actually, there is an endless white space
  • and you – faceless, calm.
  • Within this space
  • there is a presence: your tenderness.
  • But still,
  • there is nothing.
  • Nothing but your sound.
  • Within this process
  • there is a love for inconsistencies.
  • There is a joy for sculpting time.
  • Calm down,
  • there is nothing now.
  • Nothing
  • but your love for nothing.
  • There is something!
  • It’s a wish.

Performed by Albert Manders in Amsterdam (NL) and Margaret Lancester in New York (USA).

Composition for extended double bass, performed by Dario Calderone. Patch design for live electronics with Tijs Ham.

Concept:

• Double bass as resonator, using contact speakers to amplify the electronics through the wood of the double bass.

Duration: 9 minutes

Premiered in Graz, Austria, during Impuls Academy 2015.

Performed across Europe, in festivals such as Gaudeamus.

Composition for voice, harp and live electronics.

Excerpt of foreword:

• “This piece is my response to Dick Raaijmaker’ response (1999) to Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Destructive Character’ (1931). With a selection of their words, I’m not trying to unfold some sort of narrative or morale, it just so happens that certain phrases by both authors intruiged me a lot – and still do.”

Duration: 8 minutes

Premiered as part of Coalescence by Soundlings & ROSA Ensemble & Insomnio at RASA Utrecht.

Special Mentions:

• This piece received the Third Prize at the Dutch Harp Competition (all ages and nationalities).

Composition for voice and piano.

Concept:

• Capturing reminiscences of winter times, realising time is all we had. Based on poetry by ‘Heinz – So kam dieser Winter’
• Composed in one day, as part of the ‘Eendagsliederen’ project.

Duration: 4 minutes

Premiered during ‘New Songs for the End of Time’ at Codarts Amsterdam. Performed in multiple ocassions, by various musicians.

Composition of choir piece (SATB) for Haarlem Voices.

Concept:

• Zid means “wall” in Serbian. This piece

Duration: 6-7 minutes.

Performed by Haarlem Voices and Kamerkoor JIP in multiple concerts. This piece has been released on the ‘best of’ album by JIP and can be found on Spotify.

Composition and system design of duet for alto flute and live electronics. Performed by Albert Manders and interactive software.

This project was the graduation piece of Gagi Petrovic and is made in close collaboration with Albert Manders.

Concept:

• • Aesthetic and technological research in acoustic noise textures, musical interactivity between human and software performer.
  • This duet for alto flute and computer system explores a stretch of intensity: both intensity through intimacy and intensity through rigor. All the while the soft susurrance of the hissing flute expands, until its acoustics and its
    electronic counterpart collide in moments of synergy.

• “With this piece, I explore a method of hybrid composition. My main goal is to create a duet in which the acoustic and electronic domain are not only equally important, but also where the human and computer performer both have a similar impact on the performance. My starting point for achieving this balance is by approaching the electronics as a musician with its own “score” and room for interpretation.”

Duration: 15 minutes:

1. Mechanic
2. Theatric
3. Synergetic

Special Mentions:

• This piece was featured during the concert series Custom Made Music and toured in The Netherlands, including the Gaudeamus Festival 2013.
• This piece was nominated for V2_ Test_Lab: The Graduation Edition.

https://soundcloud.com/gagipetrovic/the-light-that-blinds-you

Composition for solo recorder and live electronics. Performed by Zsofia Pásztói, electronics & system design with Tijs Ham.

Duration: 10 minutes:

• I. Intense
  II. Free
  III. Restrained
  IV. Fierce
  V. Concentrated
  VI. Symbiotic

Concept:

• Verdragen means “to endure” and “treaties” in Dutch. The piece is a compositional exploration integrating unusual sounds that should be tolerated if you want to experience piece (e.g. extended techniques).

Premiered at the Nikolaïkerk, Utrecht.

Composition for contemporary gamelan ensemble ‘Ensemble Gending‘ and live electronics.

Duration: 5 minutes.

Premiered during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2012

Composition for chamber ensemble. Version 1 is for alto flute, bass clarinet, wind gong and grand piano. Version 2 is for alto flute, bass clarinet, double bass and upright piano.

Concept:

• Donker means ‘Dark’ in Dutch . The piece explores the calm and intimacy of the night, when the sun doesn’t shine anymore.

Premiered at Badcuyp Amsterdam by ensemble Passing Sounds. Performances during Gaudeamus Session and other concerts of Passing Sounds.

Solo, for recorder or concert flute. Premiered during Passing Sounds (2013) at Badcuyp Amsterdam.

Duration: 4 minutes

Concept:

• Muur means ‘wall’ in Dutch. This piece aims to create a wall of sound with just a small wind instrument.

Nonverbal theater performance by Davy Pieters, production of Theater Rotterdam.

Not all is lost is a performance about bodies. About bodies caring for other bodies. About the power of our mutual interdependence. About our fragile need for the other. What does it mean to care? What does it mean to be cared for?

Pieters links the element earth to the young adult stage of life. In doing so, she creates room for growth, but also for decay, death and silence. The performers share the floor with a living, earthly landscape. In this evocative physical performance, body and landscape together tell a panoramic story about care and neglect.

Composed Pieces:

1. Storm [6:24]
2. Twilight 1 [6:00]
3. Left Alone [11:40]
4. Anxious Step [7:44]
5. Drizzling Winds [4:32]
6. Flee [2:56]
7. Into Soil [3:14]
8. Twilight 2 [3:52]
9. Merry Go Round [4:32]
10. Embraced [2:04]
11. Self Care 1 [4:00]
12. Catch and Fall [1:08]
13. Dress Becomes Baby [4:15]
14. Self Care 2 [3:28]
15. Universe

Duration: 75 minutes.

Dutch tour: March 22 – May 27, 2023 

Composition, sound design, co-creation and music production for solo theatre by Aileen Pfauth.

Concept:

• Bloei means “to bloom” in Dutch. A solo piece about a dementing poet. 

Duration: 60 minutes.

Premiered at Fringe Festival.

Words of the director and actor:

• “I want to thank Gagi Petrovic for working with me on this play. We talked for many hours about my grandfather and the meaning of his poetry. We listened over and over again to all the conversations Of Frits and me I recorded at Frits’ ‘atelier’. I read him almost all Frits’ poems and he listened so thoughtfully to my visions, insights, doubts and all the meanings i saw in Frits work and then made the backbone of this play. He created a dreamy but down to earth atmosphere in sound, that in all its modesty tries to live up to the neutral way of living my grandfather feels is so important, walking that line of magical disenchantement. His sounddesign changes the environment on stage and reveals a world where different layers of reality coexist.
  I am so happy to have found out how wonderful it is to create something together.
  Gagi! Thank you for the love you put in to this play. And thank you for giving me insights about my perceptions on myself in this proces with your music. The new music you made these last weeks told a story I couldn’t tell myself yet, and that made me realise how sincerley you connected with the story I am trying to tell with BLOEI. (It’s all about love, OFCOURSE IT IS!) xxx”

Composition and music production for contemporary dance by Danshuis Haarlem, integrating and mastering it with existing music.

Concept:

• A story about the father figure and patriarch oppression.

Duration: 45 minutes.

Arrangement of existing music, adding some of mine and sound mastering for contemporary dance by Benjamin Kahn

Composition and music production for contemporary dance duet by Mouna Laroussi, a resident at Dansmakers Amsterdam.

Concept:

• The word Haschoema means ‘shame on you’ and is used in the Moroccan community when someone’s behaviour is inappropriate – especially if that someone is a woman. This single word expresses an understanding, a feeling and a certain tension.
• “When the choreographer commissioned me to write music for her dance duet revolving around this theme of social control, my assignment became clear: to capture oppression.”

Premiered at Dansmakers Amsterdam, then toured through the Netherlands as part of Moving Futures Festival.

Released partly on double EP ‘dp[a] + hsh’ at Moving Furniture Records.

Composition and music production for contemporary dance on beach theatres.

Concept:

• Based on stories about drowning children in the seas, the music captures forces of nature.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Special mention

• This music has later also been featured in the IDFA-nominated documentary Back To The Taj Mahal Hotel

Composition, music production and electronics arrangements of work by Junkie XL for theatre by director Paul Feld.

Description:

• In celebration of “Vrede van Utrecht 1474” (peace treaties of Utrecht), the Dutch military collaborated with scientists and artists to create an open air theatre spectacle at an old military base.

Duration: 70 minutes.

Premiered during Festival De Basis at Soesterberg.

Interdisciplinary creation of the performance ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’. Homesick consists of choreographers Cherish Menzo & Lynn Meijer, stage designer Celina Yavelow and composer Gagi Petrovic leading a group of 14 dancers.

Activities include:

• co-founder
• composition of live music for vocal trio (SAB) and fixed electronics, named ‘Y1-5’
• performer (acting, singing)
• production (fundraiser & communication)

Duration: 30 minutes.

The piece has been presented on open space stages in Parksessies Haarlem and Vondelpark Openluchttheater Amsterdam.

Composition and music production for contemporary dance, integrating new work with existing pieces.

Concept:

• Dance piece exploring fantastical elements of being a traveling circus.

Duration: 25 minutes

Performed in Haarlem.

Music for contemporary dance duo by Cherish Menzo & Lynn Meijer, with stage design by Celina Yavelow.

Duration: 15 minutes.

Premied at Frascati, Amsterdam.

Music for contemporary dance by Jolien van Haaster.

Electro-acoustic music that integrates recorded monologues of the dancers regarding feeling crazy.

Duration: 3o minutes.

Concept:

• Exploring the emotional rollercoaster of people stuck in a mental asylum.

Premiered in Haarlem

Composition and music production for a podcasts series by European Pavillion Podcast. Guitars, synths and beats. 

Duration: 45 minutes

Composition and music production for documentary by Eline F. Hesse and Robin Vogel.

Concept:

• A coming of age story about a person who inherits a financial portfolio and goes on a journey to re-invest it into a more sustainable future. More information.

Duration: 60 minutes.

Composition, music production and sound editing for video art and documentary by Alejandro Ramirez.

Concept:

• Showing multiple perspectives of the long living relations between the material tin and human kind.

Duration: 60 minutes.

Music being used in documentary by Carina Molier (Witfilm), that is nominated film for the IDFA Awards.

Concept:

• Poetically retelling the real event of the terrorist strikes on Taj Mahal Hotel.

Featured pieces by Gagi Petrovic:

• DGbs4_v1.3
• stRrrct
• hsh_2-3, from ‘dp[a]+hsh’
• circ5.0

Composition, music production, sound logo design and sound editing for podcast series.

Duration: 45 minutes.

Composition and music for short documentary by Boris Braak. Guitars and electronics.

Duration: 7 minutes

Composition and music production for short movie by Patrick Carelsz.

Duration: 3 minutes.

Summary of summer research residency at Het Huis Utrecht. 

Contemporary circus meets abstract electronic music.

Born from urgency, Lisa Chudalla and Gagi Petrovic met in a united artistic act of protest. As part of the ‘Kapsalon Theater’ demonstration in January 2022, where over 50 Theaters in the Netherlands opened  their doors for one day, they were paired together for a one-off show in Het Huis Utrecht to stand against the inconsistent lift of measures that massively disadvantaged the art and culture sector in the Netherlands. They had close to zero time to get acquainted with each other or rehearse together.

The improvisation following surprised not only them but also the theater and its audience. It was impossible to tell apart which artist followed the other, they were in sync. This inspired them to continue researching this special connection and make more performances together, with actual time for preparation.

We envision a multi-sensory experience, where both disciplines merge into an interdependent and immersive experience, a synergetic artistic entity. We aim to move beyond clear distinctions of who follows whom.

Our materials consist visually of acrobatic motion with chains, wheels and lights; aurally of abstract electronic expressionism, manipulations of present site-specific locations and performance sounds (with hints of singer-songwritership). The musical instrument, GEST, is a simple piece of hardware that reads light intensity and then continuously translates that into values between (roughly) 0 and a 1000. These moving digits then in turn feed the software of the instrument which allow for live audio manipulation of prepared recordings.

Vocalist for new audiovisual work by Zeno van den Broek.

“From Voice To Pulse explores the tension between the human and the digital sphere. The film merges detailed imagery that serves as a kind of digital loom, with ever-faster algorithmic percussion and an algorithmic text, written by open-source text generator GPT-2 and delivered by Gagi Petrovic. Artist and composer Zeno van den Broek shares a fresh, intriguing perspective on our interaction with artificial intelligence.”

This work has been presented during IFFR 2023, as finalist in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition.

Singing bass-baritone.

Members:

• Albert Manders, composition and flutes
• Hinse Mutter, composition and double bass
• Gagi Petrovic, composition and voice (bass-baritone)
• Vera van der Bie, violin
• Daniel Boeke, bass clarinet
• Anne Veinberg, piano
• Jelena Popovic, piano

Curating of ad hoc ensemble for collective improvisation. Oorsprong Curators Series is an initiative of Raoul van der Weide.

Ensemble:

• Angelo Custodio, counter tenor
• Albert Manders, flute
• Maya Fridman, cello & voice
• Dju Zaric, piano & DIY electronics
• Gagi Petrovic, GEST (DIY electronics)

Composition, production and acting for sound art trail with a narrative on the secret sounds of plants.

Concept

• Soundlings took the audience, guided by Gagi Petrovic, on a poetic journey through the botanical gardens of Utrecht, while telling a story and inviting people to listen. Consisting of a short talk, a trail of almost thirty sound installations and a spatial composition in the old Botanical Gardens of Utrecht, the collective plays with what’s real and what’s not. By doing this, they’re balancing between actual theory of biology and technology, and poetics and mythology, making for a trail that leaves the visitor wondering.

Duration: 3 hours

Performed during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2014

Acting in performance art by Pedro Matias.

Performed at Rietveld Academy and Museumnacht.