
KSENIJA
KOMLJENOVIĆ
Smashingly effective.
Vesna Duo Presents: The Rite of Spring
— The Wall Street Journal
Intellectually brilliant, musically curious, intuitive, with the heart of an artist.
— Chris Boardman, Academy Award Nominee, Emmy Award Winner
A master of playing the marimba.
— The Carmel Pine Cone


Dr. Ksenija Komljenović is a borderless musician whose artistry lives at the intersection of performance, collaboration, composition, and production. Whether premiering a new concerto, singing Balkan folk songs in performances of her own wind band music, reimagining a jazz-rock favorite for her duo, or producing a recording, Ksenija is a storyteller.
ABOUT
A prizewinner of the International Percussion Competition Luxembourg, Ksenija is a percussionist, educator, and composer. Ksenija's journey has taken her across continents, performing and teaching in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Ksenija is a faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the oldest public arts conservatory in the United States. She holds the distinction of being the first woman from Serbia to earn a Doctor of Musical Arts in Percussion Degree.
Ksenija has been recognized for her performances in Hong Kong, England, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland. In 2024/2025, she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness. That same season, she premiered Episodes for Marimba and Orchestra, composed for her by six-time Emmy winner and Academy Award nominee Chris Boardman. Her concerto appearances include Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al, Sideman by Grammy Award-winning composer Mason Bates, and Gotan Concerto by Emmanuel Séjourné. She has presented hundreds of concerts and conducted masterclasses at more than 60 educational institutions worldwide, maintaining a strong commitment to mentoring aspiring musicians globally.
She co-founded Vesna Duo with pianist Dr. Liana Pailodze Harron, an ensemble known for its blend of classical, jazz, contemporary, and folk traditions, playing concerts exclusively from memory. Their debut album, Vesna Duo Presents: The Rite of Spring, featuring Ksenija’s arrangement of Stravinsky’s ballet, received widespread media attention. Tim Page of The Wall Street Journal called it his "favorite new recording," while Reader’s Digest UK named it one of the “5 Best Creative Classical Music Arrangements.”
As a composer, Ksenija draws inspiration from her Slavic and Balkan heritage. Her wind band piece Slavdom, commissioned by a consortium of ten universities, features her singing and is available on the Tōnsehen label. Her collaborative work Epilog, created with dancers, was featured at the ceremonial reopening of the annex of the Memorial Museum of Ivo Andrić—a Yugoslav Nobel Prize winner—in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Offstage, Ksenija is dedicated to expanding opportunities for young musicians and fostering cultural exchange. She has founded and directed events such as the SoundWaves Music Festival and the TIERRAS South Texas Percussion Competition, co-produced the At Percussion Podcast, and organized Serbia’s first drumline camp and contemporary percussion workshop. Additionally, she writes a blog in both English and Serbian providing free resources for students who wish to pursue a music career.
Ksenija holds degrees from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, Illinois State University—where she was recently honored with the Outstanding Young Alumni Award—and the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Serbia. Her primary teachers include Svet Stoyanov, Matthew Strauss, Dr. David Collier, dr Srđan Palačković, and Miroslav Karlović. She is a Marimba One Artist.
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