Predrag Gosta was born in
Belgrade,
Yugoslavia (present day
Serbia), on 14 January 1972. His father was born to Serbian and German parents in
Vojvodina and his mother to a large Croatian family in
Herzegovina. He studied at the Belgrade Music Academy,
London's
Trinity College of Music,
Georgia State University in Atlanta (USA), as well as the
University of Oxford. He is the
artistic director of an early music ensemble and baroque orchestra
New Trinity Baroque, and the
music director and conductor of the
Gwinnett Ballet Theatre based in
Atlanta, United States; the president of the international early music society
Early Music Network. From 1991 to 1996 he was the artistic director of the
Studio for Early Music Belgrade and the
Belgrade International Early Music Festival. Since the festival's renewal in 2012 Maestro Gosta has been serving again as its artistic director. The Festival has since grown to one of the largest and most successful early music festivals in southern Europe - in 2017 it received an Award from the classical music magazine
Muzika klasika as the best festival for classical music in Serbia, while Maestro Gosta received the
Artist of the Year award from the
Association of Musical Artists. Predrag Gosta is also the artistic director of the
Belgrade Baroque Academy, which he founded in 2013 and co-directed until 2019 with Serbian-born contralto Marijana Mijanović. Between 2008 and 2009 he was the assistant conductor of the
National Philharmonic in
Washington, D.C. Since 2010 he is the president of the
Makris Foundation in Washington, D.C., and the
Makris Music Society. He is also an artistic advisor and U.S. director of
Peter the Great Music Academy in St. Petersburg,
Russia. In 2014 Gosta established the
New Belgrade Opera, which is focused on baroque opera. In 2015 he became the music director of the New Symphony Orchestra of Belgrade, which now bears the name of the Greek-American composer
Andreas Makris and is now known as the
Makris Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, under this orchestra, he founded a new international competition for conductors, where he acts as the president of the jury. Predrag Gosta has recorded several critically acclaimed CDs, including recording of
Henry Purcell's opera
Dido and Aeneas with British soprano
Evelyn Tubb, and recording of
Rachmaninoff's
Symphonic Dances and
Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition with the
London Symphony Orchestra. Other musicians he collaborated with include baroque violinists
Florian Deuter, Ilia Korol and
John Holloway, Baroque harpist
Andrew Lawrence-King, lutenists
Anthony Rooley and Michael Fields, Dutch recorder virtuoso
Marion Verbruggen, harpsichordists Steven Devine and Ottaviano Tenerani, Italian countertenor Carlo Vistoli, Serbian contralto
Marijana Mijanovic, Polish mezzo-soprano
Magdalena Wór and others, as well as orchestras and theatre houses such as the
London Symphony Orchestra, the
Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, the State Hermitage Orchestra in St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg State Capella
Glinka, the
Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, the Theatre of Biel-Solothurn Theatre, the
Belgrade National Theatre and the
Madlenianum Opera-Theatre, opera theatres in Ruse, Burgas and Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) and others. He appeared at the festivals such as the
Boston Early Music Festival and
Piccolo Spoleto (USA),
Varazdin Baroque Evenings and
Korkyra Baroque (Croatia),
Budva Theatre City (Montenegro) and many others. Predrag Gosta also served the affiliate guest lecturer at
Georgia State University in Atlanta, and as a choir professor and artist-in-residence at
Oxford College of Emory University in Oxford, Georgia, USA. == Discography and videography ==