Vesna Petković
Vesna Petković was born in Niš, Serbia in 1974. After graduating from the high school of music “dr. Vojislav Vučković” in Niš, she began her education at the then Niš Music High School. Even then, she sang with local jazz musicians and showed great interest in improvised music.
Since 1996, she has continued her studies at the University of Music and Applied Arts in Graz, Austria, where she transferred to the study department of jazz singing. She studied in the class of professors Mark Murphy, Sheila Jordan, Jay Clayton, Michelle Hendrix, Lori Antonioli. In 2003, she completed her Master’s degree and received an award from the Austrian Ministry of Culture for outstanding artistic success.
During her studies she sang with many Big bands such as Styria Solar Big Band (Austria), Franz Schober Big Band (Austria), Fool Cool Jazz Orchestra (Slovenia) and at the same time formed her first jazz combo “Inner Urge”.
Vesna Petković is a versatile singer, composer, arranger and songwriter, which can be heard on her debut album “A New One” (Zama Recordings). In her compositions, Petković connects jazz music with the traditional music of the Balkans and following the tradition of her idol Joe Zawinul. She is known to the international audience through projects and bands such as: Vesna Petković Group, Sandy Lopičić Orchestra, Reihard Zigerhofer Group, Who Man Dog, Trio “Petkovic / Bakanic / Meinhart”.
In her career so far, she has performed with: Ewald Oberleitner, Dean Bowmen, Alex Deutsch, Stjepko Gut, Bobby McFerrin, Milan Nikolić, Vanja Kevrešan.
Since 2009 she has been the conductor of the multicultural women’s choir “Sosamma” in Graz, and the founder is also the organizer of the music festival “Pangea-musik.lebt” in Graz. She is also active as a theater actress: Schauspielhaus Graz (“Black Rider”), Ensemble Theater, (“Romeo und Julia in Sarajevo”), TIP as music editor (“Dieweibervolksversammlung von Aristophanes”) Schaubühne (the case of Jovanka), Next Liberty (“Das Kind der Seehundfra “).
Since 2013 she has been working at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, where she teaches jazz singing at the Department of Jazz and Popular Music.