Jovan Kolundžija (; born 4 October 1948)JOVAN KOLUNDŽIJA, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 4 August 2020. is a Serbian violin maestro and politician. He has served in Serbia's national assembly since 2020 as an independent representative endorsed by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
Early life and musical career Kolundžija was born in Belgrade, in what was then the People's Republic of Serbia in the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He earned a master's degree in music from the University of Arts in Belgrade and later studied with Henryk Szeryng. He performs on a 1745 Guarnerius.
Kolundžija is the founder of the Guarnerius Centre for Fine Arts in Belgrade, which the Serbian government recognized as an institution of cultural significance in 2013. He has participated in more than four thousand concerts, including performances at Carnegie Hall and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.Jovan Kolundžija concert notes, Novi Sad Cultural Centre, 2013, accessed 27 June 2020.
In 1994, Kolundžija was the featured violinist for a four-day program called The Ten Magnificents, which comprised performances of concertos by J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Max Bruch, Édouard Lalo, Henryk Wieniawski, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms.The performance, interestingly, received a poor review in Borba, 21 April 1994, p. 19. In 2008, he presented a program called Do You Love Beethoven? in Belgrade, performing all of Beethoven's sonatas for solo violin and piano.JOVAN KOLUNDŽIJA, Guarneri Arts Centre, accessed 27 June 2020.
He is the brother of the pianist Nada Kolundžija, with whom he has frequently performed.See for instance "Jovan i Nada Kolundžija na novoj turneji po Vojvodini od 30. oktobra", Radio Television of Vojvodina, 27 October 2023, accessed 3 April 2024.
Politician Kolundžija received the third position on the Progressive Party's For Our Children electoral list in the 2020 Serbian parliamentary election."Ko je sve na listi SNS za republičke poslanike?", Danas, 6 March 2020, accessed 30 June 2020. This was tantamount to election, and he was indeed elected when the list won a landslide majority with 188 out of 250 seats. In announcing his candidacy, he said he would work in a non-partisan capacity for meaningful changes in Serbia's cultural sector.Jovan Kolundžija: Ne vidim alternativu ovoj vlasti, Beta, 9 March 2020, accessed 27 June 2020. In his first term, he was a member of the assembly's culture and information committee and a deputy member of Serbia's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean.ЈОВАН КОЛУНЏИЈА, , National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 31 May 2022.
He appeared in the ninth position on the SNS's Together We Can Do Everything list in the 2022 Serbian parliamentary election and was re-elected when the list won 120 seats, falling below majority status but remaining the dominant presence in the assembly."Ko su kandidati SNS za narodne poslanike?", Danas, 17 February 2022, accessed 17 April 2022. He did not have any committee responsibilities in the term that followed, although he was the leader of Serbia's parliamentary friendship group with Eswatini.Parliamentary friendship group - Eswatini, , National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 3 April 2024.
Kolundžija was given the seventh position on the SNS's list in the 2023 parliamentary election and was elected to a third term when the list returned to majority status with 129 seats."Pogledajte ko su kandidati na Vučićevoj listi Srbija ne sme da stane", Danas, 3 November 2023, accessed 29 March 2024. He is now once again a member of the culture and information committee and a member of the friendship group with Eswatini.JOVAN KOLUNDZIJA, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, accessed 9 August 2024.
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