In memoriam: FARUK SIJARIĆ (Mostar, 17 May 1942 - Sarajevo, 19 January 2021)

The University of Sarajevo Music Academy informs colleagues, friends and the general public that a violinist, our esteemed professor and longtime Dean Osman-Faruk Sijarić passed away in Sarajevo at the age of 78 on 19 January 2021.

He was born on 17 May 1942 in Mostar. He finished primary and secondary music school, and then the Music Academy, in the class of K. Hauser, in Sarajevo. He attended the postgraduate study of violin at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, and continued it at the State Conservatory in Moscow at the Department of D. Oistrach. After two years of specialization with G. Barinova, he completed his master's degree in the class of P. A. Bondarenko in Moscow in 1972.  In 1975, he realized his study stay in the USA.

After returning from Russia, Faruk Sijarić first worked at the Music High School and since 1974 at the Music Academy in Sarajevo, where he works in all positions from assistant to full professor and retires in 2012. He was the Academy of Music Dean from 1987 to 2003. He was University of Sarajevo Vice-Rector from 1994-1995 and 1996-1997. 

Through his pedagogical activity, he raised generations of concert-active violinists, and as a prolific reproductive artist, he gave concerts in Europe and North America. He was a member of the Symphony Orchestra of Radio-Television Sarajevo and the Sarajevo Philharmonic. As a promoter of American composition, at the invitation of the Cultural Center of the American Embassy with pianist Kooicher in 1979 he held a series of concerts throughout Yugoslavia. In the same period, he dedicated a significant part of his artistic activity to promoting the works of Yugoslav composers and thus released a gramophone record with works by Magdić, Cipra, Slavenski and Komadina as one of the few discographic releases of art music in BiH. His concert activity was regularly followed by very affirmative criticism in the most important media of the former Yugoslavia.

In addition to pedagogical and artistic activities, Osman-Faruk Sijarić was extremely active in the social and cultural life of Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in various professional cultural organizations and institutions. He was the president of the Association of Music Educators of Yugoslavia, the president of the Council for Music Activity of RTV BiH, the president of the Assembly of SIZ of Culture of BiH and a delegate in the Assembly of SIZ for Higher Education of BiH, in addition to a number of other functions. For his social work, Sijarić received a number of significant awards, including a plaque from the City of Sarajevo and the Order of Labor with Silver Rays.

Faruk Sijarić's activity in the role of the Music Academy Dean in besieged Sarajevo played a crucial role in the survival of the institution in the most difficult days of its existence. Present daily at the Academy, he fought so that it would not interrupt its work and that its teachers and students would have the conditions for continuous action. Despite the war devastation, thanks to its international engagement, the Academy received the necessary instruments and library materials and, strengthened, entered the years of its post-war development. In the same period, Sijarić managed to provide 20 international scholarships for talented young artists at top European art academies, which are today the backbone of the teaching staff of the UNSA Music Academy. During the war years, with his artistic and dean's engagement, and then as the initiator of the relaunch of the Sarajevo Philharmonic, he made a crucial contribution to today's globally recognized phenomenon of the musical life of Sarajevo under siege, during which over 2000 concerts were held.

Commemorative session in honor of Prof. Osman-Faruk Sijarić will be held in the National Theater in Sarajevo on Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 10:30. A limited number of visitors will attend the session, with the application of recommended epidemiological measures. The funeral will take place at the Bare city cemetery, on Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 13:00.