Dušan Vilić

Dušan Vilić was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in a Serbian-Russian artistic family. He manifested extraordinary musical abilities in early childhood. He graduated from the College of Music in two specialties, violin and organ. Also, he graduated from the Belgrade Music Academy where he attended the violin class and optionally the vocal class. He improved his organ skills under the guidance of the leading European performers A. Parshin, D. Sanger, E. Belotti, P. Kohout, O. Latry, among others. During his academy years, he became the prizewinner at many national competitions, gave concerts as a violinist and organist, and took part in concerts of students of the Vocal Department of the class of L. Gross. Led by the top musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic L. Spierer and S. Bernardini, he twice participated in master classes in the German-Scandinavian Symphony Orchestra as a violinist and accompanist. At one of the concerts of the Orchestra he tried himself in conducting.

Over the years, Dušan Vilić has been actively collaborating with the Serbian Patriarchal Choir “The First Belgrade Singing Society”, as a soloist and organist. With the Choir, he has repeatedly performed at the Moscow Easter Festival established by Valery Gergiev, and at international festivals of sacred music in cultural centers of Europe. During those times, his composing skills also got manifested, and as a composer, he became a prize-winner at the III Open All-Russian Contest of Composers “21^st Century Russian Music”.

Dušan Vilić continued his musical education in Russia, where he graduated from the Opera and Symphony Conducting Department of the St Petersburg Conservatory in 2019 and completed his post-graduate studies at the Conservatory in 2021 (class of Prof. A.S. Dmitriev, People’s Artist of the USSR). The last year of his post-graduate studies he was taught by Prof. A.I. Polishchuk. Dušan Vilić had made his debut as a conductor in his student years in his native city of Belgrade with the Stanislav Binički Symphony Orchestra, with which he had established close cooperation. The critics noted the young conductor’s professional excellence, describing his performances as a burst of new creative energy in the musical life of the Serbian capital. “Two bright Slavonic cultures are harmoniously combined in him, like two instruments”, the metropolitan press wrote about Dušan Vilić.

In Russia, Dušan Vilić has conducted many orchestras, including the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the St Petersburg Conservatory Opera Studio Orchestra, the Orchestra of St Petersburg State Philharmonia for Children and Teenagers, the St Petersburg Youth Orchestra, the St Petersburg Metropolis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. The conductor’s repertoire encompasses masterpieces of various eras and styles. Concert opuses by composers of the past as well as by contemporary composers have been performed with such famous soloists as Boris Andrianov, Nikita Mndoyants, Vadim Teyfikov, Aleksey Maslov, Dmitry Petrov and Anastasia Rogaleva, Nikolai Mazhara, Albert Zhmaev, Luka Gadeliya. The musician closely cooperates with Elena Obraztsova Cultural Center. Also, he has repeatedly been a jury member at various competitions of vocal and instrumental art.

In 2019–2022, he conducted a wide variety of concert programs with the Volgograd Academic Symphony Orchestra. With the Orchestra, he also performed solo organ and violin compositions.

In season 2022/23 he was a conductor of the St Petersburg Opera Theatre.

Since October 2023 he has been a conductor of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.