Composer Katarina Miljkovic investigates interaction between science, music and nature through collaborative musical performance. Miljkovic has written for symphony orchestra, string orchestra and various other groupings including works for amplified saxophone, saxophone quartet, prepared piano, percussion, electric guitar and computer generated sounds. Her interest in the relationship of science, nature and music led her to mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot’s essay The Fractal Geometry of Nature and to self-similar complex structures, resulting in a cycle, Forest, for two prepared pianos and percussion, released by Sachimay Records.
Recently, in collaboration with Wolfram Research, Miljkovic has been working on mapping the elementary rules from Stephen Wolfram’s New Kind of Science to sound. She presented her exploration in this new field at the NKS Summer School at Brown University, NKS Conference 2004, Waltham, MA, Wolfram Technology Conference 2005, Champaign, Illinois, NKS 2006 Washington, DC., NKS 2007, University of Vermont, The Musical and Scientific Legacies of Iannis Xenakis, 2006, Toronto, and the International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, MCM 2007, Berlin.
Katarina Miljkovic's works have been performed at major music festivals in her native Yugoslavia, including the Belgrade Music Festivities, BEMUS, Music Biennale and the World Festival of Chamber Music in Zagreb, the Rostrum of Yugoslav Music, and wider, at the International Festivals of Santorini, Greece, Budapest, Romanische Sommer, Cologne, soundAxis, Toronto, Boston CyberArts Festival and MassArt multimedia festival and Cambridge Science festival 09.
Ms. Miljkovic's Rondo, Sequence for String Orchestra was performed internationally by Belgrade String Orchestra, Dusan Skovran, in China, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Russia, and Great Britain, at venues such as the Beijing Concert Hall, the Moscow Conservatory Big Concert Hall, and the Bulgaria Symphony Hall. Her work Swifts, Sequence for Symphonic Orchestra was performed by the Belgrade Radio Orchestra, the Athens Symphony Orchestra and broadcasted internationally.
Ms. Miljkovic has been teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, since 1996. She is the recipient of the Louis Krasner and Lawrence Lesser award for excellence in teaching.