10th Isidor Bajic Piamo Memorial Catalogue

Memorial Organizer
Isidor Bajić Music School began operating in Novi Sad on September 1, 1909, at the initiative of Isidor
Bajić, music pedagogue, publisher, melodiographer, and composer. Excluding the Music School in
Subotica, this was the only professional music school in this part of Southern Austro-Hungarian Empire
(today’s Vojvodina). Isidor Bajić, the founder, owner, principal, and teacher of theoretical music
subjects, employed experts from various fields of the musical arts to serve as teachers at his school.
Future professional musicians, as well as audiences and music lovers, were all educated at Bajić’s
music school.
In the decades that followed, as the school expanded its capacities, the number of students grew
constantly, as did the teaching staff. After many years of struggle for the adequate space needed for
lessons to be held and after numerous relocations, in 1953 the school was finally installed at Njegoševa
9, where it has remained until today. From the moment composer Rudolf Bruči became the principal
of the school, a twenty year period of constant advancement followed, as teaching methods developed,
and the enrichment of instrument, record, and sheet music collections began.
Today, there are about 1000 students and 160 teachers at Isidor Bajić Music School, encompassing kindergarten,
elementary, and high school educational levels in seven departments: string (violin, viola,
cello, double bass), wind (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, saxophone),
piano, poly-instrumental (guitar, tamburitza, harp, percussions), voice, accordion, and theory department.
Over the last ten years, the pioneering jazz workshop has been continuously gathering jazz lovers
not only limited to the pupils of the school.
Special attention at the school is devoted to collective performance, and the institution is especially
proud of the seven ensembles that gather together all the students of the elementary and highschool:
Bajić’s Young String Players - an elementary school string orchestra, the High-School String
Orhestra, Bajić’s Nightingales - an elementary school choir, the Female and Mixed High-School Choir,
Margita Baračkov - an elementary school accordion orchestra, and the high-school accordion orchestra.
Several of these ensembles were established more than a half-century ago, and each of them has
won numerous prizes in their respective fields at national and international competitions, as well as
various public awards. Recordings of the ensembles’ performances are kept at the Novi Sad Radio Archives,
while an additional 7 CD recordings and an audio cassette have been produced by the school.
The dedication and spirit of the school inspired Radujko Svetozar to write a monography, Novi Sad
– the City of Music, published by Isidor Bajić Music School in 2000.
The School has been awarded a number of prizes and awards for its decades-long successful operation:
the Vuk Prize (1999, Ministry of Education and Cultural-
Educational Association of Serbia), the International New Millennium
Award for the Best Trade Name (2004, Spain, awarded
to the school and its principal for the successful work and man-
Isidor Bajić
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