A charismatic viola player, an expressive voice and sound artist from Vojvodina (Serbia), has energized the Viennese music scene with her projects Catch-Pop String-Strong, Sormehand Madame Baheux. Her performances are characterized by unusual vocal coloratura, witty stage presentation, boundless energy and a playful curiosity for uncommon instruments and for exploring the capabilities of loop technology. She was awarded 2 times for the best original theatre music, several times with the awards in World Music scene and 2020 with “Vojin Mališa Draškoci” Award (by the World Music asocijacija Srbije) for her work in general. With her jazz-tinged Jelena Popržan Quartet, she interpreted exciting original compositions and set poems by the Polish-Jewish-Viennese poet Tamar Radzyner (1927–1991). Her unconventional stage music (especially on newly invented instruments) for the productions of the acclaimed director Sara Ostertag has also attracted a lot of attention. Her widely-heralded solo programme “La Folia” amalgamates early and new music, world, singer-songwriting, cabaret, folk, pop, rock&jazz–wherever you want to place them stylistically Popržan sucks the nectar from all of these genres and lets their very own mixture ferment from them. A varied revue can be expected, songs, compositions, sounds. Homages to forgotten traditions and unforgettable new things!
Reviews:
„From light to heavy and everything in between“ In her solo performance, the Austrian voice artist and violist Jelena Popržan from Serbia opens new possibilities for her vocals. Then she constantly switches between different languages and draws freely from her extremely diverse sources of inspiration. A homage to Charles Aznavour can easily be followed by a Bosnian battle song or an English folk song from the repertoire of The Pentangle. She plays her viola in every way imaginable, plucked, with the bow or even – very irreverently – as percussion, while she uses her loop station to build exciting grooves or to give her violin playing orchestral proportions. It gets really hilarious when Popřzan pulls out her ‘maulgeige’. This wonderful piece of home craft consists of an ordinary walking stick on which a single string is stretched, which is connected via a cross connection to a bit in her mouth, so that she can change the pitch with head movements. Not only uncontrollably funny, but also of impressive virtuosity.
– Music Meeting, Nijmegen, concert review (NL 2023)
“thunder strike … The music that happened came out of heaven. …bold, confident, rehearsed in detail and identified with the performance she designed, Jelena Popržan performed. Interpretations of her compositions written for the theater, those from the latest album, as well as various others, are among the highest quality string plays that the author of the text has had the opportunity to hear.”
–
World Music Asocijacija Srbije (RS 2021)“With her sovereignty, virtuosity and both musical and narrative wit, she certainly convinced a skeptical visitor after listening to the album, but she succeeded in something that is actually becoming rarer, although we don’t know if it’s the changing audience, musicians or perhaps the formats of concerts or venues. With an extremely sovereign, just right taste of performance and a completely unpretentious stage presence, she managed to put the audience in a state of extreme attention, in which we could use the expression: we ate from the palm of her hand.”–Radio Student, Ljubljana/Slo2021)
„… Jelena sounds cooler than a cucumber to us! Check out this seriously talented musician who will blow your mind with her viola … … she brings a Rock ‘n’ Roll aesthetic to what some see as a bloated violin …”
– Wurstelstand (AT 2020)
„An album on which the gates to musical diversity are being opened wide: the violist andsingerJELENA POPRŽAN shows on her solo debut,La Folia‘(Lotus Records) in a stirring way whatkind of extraordinary things can come about once one breaks away from all classical musicalconcepts.“
– Music Export Austria (2020)
