Milos Bjelica

Milos Bjelica is a clarinetist, saxophonist, and educator, with a goal to make this world a better place to live in, by constantly challenging himself and others around him.

He has been regularly performing formal recitals and concerts across the USA, Europe, and Serbia. Furthermore, in the area of professional development, he has attended a numerous number of master classes with distinguished professors such as Wenzel Fuchs, Gabor Varga, Frank Cohen, Yuan Yuan, Jonathan Cohler, Philippe Cuper, Mate Bekavac, Paul Mayer and has been furthering his teaching experience as a clarinet instructor. Milos has been engaged in a wider music community in Serbia and USA as a volunteer clarinet instructor to children with disabilities.

​Milos, currently, studies with professor Jonathan Cohler, Artist diploma, at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston, MA. He holds Master degree from the Longy School of Music of Bard College and BA from the University of Belgrade in the class of professor Ante Grgin (2009).

With the Nevsky Clarinet Quartet, to which he was a founder and the first clarinet, Milos had an opportunity to work closely with theatre directors, actors, stage managers and theatre choreographers on the concert program design. With the Nevsky Clarinet Quartet, he participated in numerous festivals such as Fourth European Clarinet Congress in Poland, 2014; ICA ClarinetFest Assisi, Italy, 2013; Bemus Festival, Serbia, 2012 and ClarinetFest in Montenegro 2011, 2010 and 2009.

Furthermore, Milos co-founded the chamber orchestra Synergy in 2013 in Serbia. This chamber orchestra brings together young professional musicians who desire to perform classical music for children. Synergy’s most successful performance was the Clown Concert for the chamber orchestra, the narrator and the clown by German conductor and composer A. Kahler that teaches children how to feel and understand their feelings. The piece through four movements reflects the four temperaments – choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.

As a clarinetist, he received numerous awards at national and international competitions. The most recent ones include the Concerto and Honors competition at Longy School of Music (2017) and the Harold Wright Merit Award in Boston (2016).

Teaching Experience

Milos, currently, works at the Dana Hall Music School, Wellesley; the Maestro Musicians Academy; and the Kometa Serbian children’s program. As an educator, Milos is a dedicated pedagogue. He likes to encourage students to think, work, study, and practice the instrument on their own, not only in the class. His leitmotif is “[…], I can only make you think”. As a teacher of clarinet at the music school “Vatroslav Lisinski”, his career dates back 2006. His students have so far won 49 first, 16 second and 2 third prizes in the national and the international competitions. Hence, the Association of Music and Ballet Pedagogues of Serbia awarded him with the Best Pedagogue of the Year Award in 2012.

Community Engagement

Milos has been working as a clarinet instructor at summer clarinet programs for students in Serbia since 2006. The program of the summer course is an intensive one-week curriculum, focused on practice methods, chamber music, musical theory, and solfeggio. Forty to fifty students usually attend the program. He also contributes to charity events for children in need. By performing charitable concerts since 2009, he has been helping with fundraising for children with disability across Serbia.