Biography
“A dangerously active volcano” — Austrian Kronen Zeitung
Branko Džinović is an accordionist, bandoneonist, improviser, and composer. He won the Grand Prize at the 2001 Accordion World Cup in London and first prizes at the Das Podium Competition in Linz and the DMA Recital Competition at the University of Toronto—competitions open to all instrumentalists.
Deeply engaged with contemporary music, Džinović has collaborated with prominent composers such as Per Nørgård, Salvatore Sciarrino, Philippe Leroux, and Aleksandra Vrebalov. His collaborations with Canadian and Serbian composers have led to premieres of new works by Bekah Simms, Linda Catlin Smith, Ana Sokolović, Jug Marković, and others. He has also collaborated with emerging Serbian composers Djordje Marković and Maja Bosnić, appearing on recordings of their music supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Džinović has performed with leading Canadian chamber ensembles, including the Array Ensemble and New Music Concerts. In 2016, he appeared on stage as an accordionist in the National Ballet of Canada’s The Winter’s Tale during its North American premiere at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto, followed by performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Lincoln Center in New York. In 2022, he joined the Hamburg Ballet for the performance of the same production.
In 2017, Džinović was selected for a residency at the Banff Centre with New York’s International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), where he worked with Tyshawn Sorey on the performance of Autoschediasms. Alongside his contemporary projects, Džinović has also worked with traditional music artists such as Serbian singer Svetlana Spajić, known for her collaboration with Marina Abramović and Robert Wilson (The Life and Death of Marina Abramović).
Džinović holds a Master’s degree from the Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance in Linz and a Doctor of Musical Arts in performance from the University of Toronto, where he studied with Joseph Macerollo, O.C. His doctoral thesis, The Composer-Performer Interrelationship in the Bayan and Accordion Compositions of Sofia Gubaidulina, explores the creative dialogues between the renowned Russian composer and the performers who shaped some of the most significant works in the accordion repertoire. For his research, Branko Džinović interviewed Sofia Gubaidulina before the 2017 premiere of her Triple concerto for violin, cello, and accordion in Boston.
As a guest lecturer, he has visited institutions including Wilfrid Laurier University, the National Musicological Institute “Carlos Vega” in Buenos Aires, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), the Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava, the Musicological Institute “Orpheus” in Ghent, the University of Music, Theatre and Media Hanover, the Folkwang University of the Arts, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He was also a guest artist at new music festivals at the University of Northern Iowa and Clark University.
In 2024, Džinović joined the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra for the performance of Zoran Erić’s Six Scenes-Comments. Frequently co-producing and composing for interdisciplinary projects, he has collaborated with Serbian composer and multi-instrumentalist Boris Kovač on two feature film soundtracks and has written music for theatre productions in Serbia, for which he received the national “Joakim Vujić” Award.
Džinović has recorded for Radio Belgrade, Radio Austria 1, and the BBC, and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the Czech Republic.