Well-known trombonist Mladen Guteša founded Radio Belgrade Light Revue Orchestra on 18 January 1948. By the end of 1949. he invited Mihailo Živanović to become its member. Mihajlo was then a student of the "Music Academy" in the class of renowned professor Bruno Brun. For such a work and permanent employment, he had to get permission from his professor. Professor Bruno gave him consent.
In the Revue Orchestra Mihailo first played the baritone saxophone, and then the instrument which he had been studying - the clarinet. Radio Belgrade Revue Orchestra had many successful tours and concerts. One in Zagreb in 1953, which proved that Belgrade was the center of Yugoslav jazz.
Before the end of the study in 1954, persuaded by professors from the Academy, he left Radio Belgrade Revue Orchestra and got a job in the National Theatre Orchestra (Belgrade Opera) where he worked four years (until 1958).
As a student at the Academy he achieved a remarkable success in the "Yugoslav competition of young artists", clarinetist of classical music, in Skopje in 1954. There he won the second prize (the first was not awarded to anyone).
In 1955, he graduated clarinet successfully.
In 1955, Zivanovic founded "Mihailo Zivanovic’s Octet" in which he played the baritone saxophone. Alongside him, Predrag Ivanović played the trumpet, Nikola Dajzinger the alt saxophone, Eduard Sađil the tenor saxophone, Predrag Stefanović the trombone, Vojkan Đonovićić the guitar, Robert Hauber the piano and Rade Milivojević the drums.
Octet had been performing for 10 years with great success on radio stations in the country and abroad. It soon became one of the leading Yugoslav ensembles for contemporary and experimental jazz music.
Since 1958, almost to the last days of his life, he had been employed by the "Music Production branch of Radio Television of Serbia". That same year he became a permanent member of the Light String Orchestra led by Ilija Genić and later a conductor of the Jazz Orchestra i Revue Orchestra of Radio Television Belgrade.
In 1960, he became a member of "Serbian Composers Association".
In 1975, he was appointed head of the "Light Ensemble of RTB", and since 1978 permanent conductor of the "Light Orchestra of RTB" until his death.
Mihailo Živanović was a very prolific composer. He wrote children’s and stage music, popular songs, pop songs, and concert music, as well as numerous compositions and arrangements for the Yugoslav radio and TV stations.
He continuously followed the developments in the world of jazz and light music and was always in the contemporary musical trends of his time. Over forty years, he extensively composed different genres of music with a great success. He wrote over 300 instrumental, light, and vocal-instrumental compositions.
Until then, only foreign jazz music was played by Belgrade jazz orchestras. Živanović was one of the first jazz musicians who began to compose modern domestic jazz, and which he engaged in with a great enthusiasm. Živanović enriched Yugoslav light and jazz music with his great knowledge and activity, working up to the last day. Živanović’s many achievements have been permanently recorded in the history of Yugoslav jazz creativity.
He wrote the music and scene songs for the then popular singers such as: Arsen Dedić, Nada Knežević, Lola Novaković, Bisera and Senka Veletanlić, Anica Zubović, Dragan Stojnić, Tihomir Petrović, “Lutajuća srca”, Đorđe Marjanović, Zafir Hadžimanov, Krunoslav Slabinac, Dragan Mijalkovski and many others.
He was one of the most prolific creators of music for children.
At a time when intensively engaged in the instrument, he was known as one of the most inventive and best soloist on the clarinet and baritone saxophone. He performed in concerts at home and abroad with a great success (Germany, Austria, Romania, USA). As a soloist, he represented his country at the Berlin concert in the series “Music knows no boundaries”.
At the Light Music Festivals Mihailo appeared as a conductor. He was the conductor of the RTB Light Music Orchestra and the first clarinetist of Belgrade RTV Symphonic Orchestra. Mihailo was proficient in making arrangements and in this field left his great contribution and indelible mark.
Mihailo Mika Živanović began composing in 1950. His creative work is enormous:
These works include:
These works include:
These works include:
These works include:
These works include:
Mihajlo Živanović was a composer who had written the most songs for children on the theme of friendship and camaraderie.
These, and other songs were sang by RTB Children’s Choir, Branko Milićević, Predrag Panić and Dragan Laković.
The last 10 years of life, he was a regular collaborator of the Children’s Television. He had composed music for children’s TV series like:
("Cricket’s Album" and "Guess" are children’s compositions too, were recorded on gramophone records by PGP and on a dozen different records there are compositions interpreted by the popular singers of the time.)
For the Belgrade television show
Mihailo Živanović won numerous awards in the field of art. Some of them were:
Nyakul Dawson
Nyakul Dawson was an Australian Aboriginal artist from Irrunytju. He was one of the earliest Ngaanyatjarra artists to achieve success using Western-style painting techniques. Examples of his work are held in the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Dawson was born near Mount Davies in the north-west corner of South Australia, around 1935. The exact year is not known, because he was born in the bush and grew up without any contact with Western society. He and his family, who belonged to the Ngaanyatjarra nation, lived a traditional, nomadic way of life in the desert. When he was a boy, Dawson began training as a "" (traditional healer) under his grandfather. He was taught about the country, the spiritual knowledge and law associated with it, and how to use traditional tools and methods to heal people.
In the 1950s, government patrols removed Dawson and his family from their homeland in order to escape the fallout from the nuclear tests at Maralinga. They were settled at Warburton, to the north-west, with many other Ngaanyatjarra families. It was at Warburton that he was given the surname "Dawson". His nomadic childhood in the desert made him an expert on how to survive in the wilderness. He was often used as a guide in prospecting expeditions.
While living at Warburton, Dawson married a woman named Alkawari. They moved to Irrunytju, closer to Dawson's home country, and had three children during the 1970s. Dawson married again much later, to Anmanari Brown. Anmanari had also been married before, and her several children became part of his family. Dawson remained highly respected as a community elder and traditional healer until his death.
Dawson began painting in 2002, aged in his 60s. The year before, the women of Irrunytju had opened an art centre in the community, called Irrunytju Arts. His wife, Anmanari, had already been painting at the centre for several months, and Dawson joined her along with several of the community's other senior men. Dawson's first wife, Alkawari, also became a successful artist at Irrunytju.
Dawson's paintings depict creation stories from the Dreamtime and concepts from his spirituality. They illustrate his family's Dreaming and how their ancestors created the land. His birthplace is on the Dreaming track (or "songline") of the (Goanna Man), the path travelled by one of his ancestors from the Dreamtime whose totem is the perentie lizard. The scenes in his paintings are from the places he travelled as a boy with his family in the central Australian desert.
Dawson was a member of the Executive Committee of Desart for several years until November 2006. In June 2006, he travelled to Paris for the opening of the Musée du quai Branly. He was there with the Australia Council for the Arts as a representative for Aboriginal Australian art.