Nikola Begović

NIKOLA BEGOVIĆ was born in Bačka Topola and spent much of his youth in the municipality and city of Subotica, Serbia.  His education in music began early with a focus on classical guitar, but his range of performances have covered genres from rock-n-roll to jazz.  Much of his early music education was at the Subotica School of Music, Serbia where he studied guitar under the tutelage of Petar Milovic and Marko Srdjevic, and by the time Begović had completed his secondary education he had won several provincial and national guitar competitions.

Begović went on to complete his higher education at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia, graduating with highest honors, and continued to polish his performance skills by taking master classes from some of the world’s leading guitarists, some of whom are:  Zoran Krajisnik, Marco Tamayo, Jean-Marc Zvellenreuther, Sante Tursi, Gerhard Reichenbach, Goran Krivokapić, Renato Samuelli, Petar Janković, Kostas Cotsiolis, Walter Würdinger and Sergio Assad.

Among his achievements during his years of academic study, Begović won first prize at the Guitar Open Festival (2011), third prize at the International Tremolo Guitar Festival (2011), third prize at the Sarajevo Guitar Festival (2012) and was laureate and winner at the 11th annual International Guitar Competition in Leskovac, Serbia.  In 2014, he was a member of a chamber group that won first prize at the Guitar Art Festival in Belgrade, and in 2017 he won first prize at the Matinee Musicale Scholarship Competition in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.  He is also winner of a prestigious award from the Dositeja National Fund for Young Talents, which was presented to him in 2014 by the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

In addition, Begović has been a member of the Guitar Ensemble at Indiana University (USA) and held the position of principal guitarist of the Serbian National Opera (2012-2015).

Currently Begović is completing his doctoral studies at Indiana University under the guidance of Professor Ernesto Bitetti.  He also continues his active playing while engaging in educational work teaching future guitarists as a teacher/lecturer and associate instructor at Indiana University.