DANICA BORISAVLJEVIC'S MUSIC LAB / NEW YORK
ARTIST · TEACHING · SOUND
MUSIC TECHNOLOGIST · COMPOSER · PIANIST · EDUCATOR
A place to listen, make, and become your own artist.
Danica Borisavljevic connects piano, synthesis, sound design, composition, improvisation, and moving image—inviting young musicians into a contemporary practice grounded in curiosity and craft. Born in Belgrade, Serbia and based in New York City she is a composer, pianist, music technologist, film scorer, and educator whose work explores the intersection of acoustic performance, synthesis, sound design, electroacoustic music, and contemporary creative practice. Drawing on conservatory training from Serbia, Russia, and the United States, she bridges classical musicianship with electronic music production, electroacoustic composition, improvisation, film scoring, and contemporary performance practice. Her teaching philosophy centers on helping students develop both technical fluency and artistic identity through composition, listening, experimentation, and creative exploration. Particular expertise in contemporary piano practices that extend the instrument beyond traditional performance through preparations, inside-the-piano techniques, resonance exploration, percussive approaches, and experimental sound production. These sounds are recorded, electronically processed, transformed through synthesis and digital manipulation, and reintroduced into compositional and performance environments, creating a bridge between acoustic and electronic musical worlds.
Explore the program

KIDS ON SYNTHS / SIGNAL 01
Every sound begins with attention.
A long practice of teaching, listening, and making.
SELECTED FILM & MEDIA / Moonlight · Upside Down · White Room · Lear’s Shadow · Soul to Rest · SIERRA-98 · Legend of the Unclemother
RECOGNITION / Manhattan Film Festival 2024 Winner · Cyprus International Film Festival 2023 Best Music Video · Moving Body Festival 2025 Most Daring Award
EDUCATION / M.A. Piano Performance, Florida International University · B.A. Piano Performance, Academy of Arts Novi Sad · Professional Studies, Junior College in Association with Tchaikovsky Conservatory
01 / KIDS ON SYNTHS
Curiosity of a child is a serious instrument.
An interdisciplinary sound laboratory for young creators.
Kids on Synths introduces children and adolescents to synthesis, sound exploration, improvisation, electronic music creation, recording, and creative listening in an accessible and artistically rigorous environment. Technology is approached not as an end in itself, but as a way to strengthen musical imagination, attention, and artistic confidence.
LISTEN DEEPLY · MAKE BOLDLY · COLLABORATE GENEROUSLY · FOLLOW THE SOUND
Creative Music Technology & Contemporary Sound
A contemporary music education initiative for children and adolescents, connecting piano, composition, electronic music, sound design, improvisation, film scoring, and creative music technology. Traditional musicianship becomes a launchpad for contemporary sonic culture.
Creative music technology
Synthesis, recording, signal flow, and sound design as artistic tools.
Composition & improvisation
Original work, electroacoustic fusion, and the confidence to explore.
Film scoring & sonic storytelling
Sound for image, multimedia collaboration, and the narrative possibilities of sound techology.
Teaching grows from an active artistic practice.
PROJECTS / PERFORMANCE / COLLABORATION
FEATURED INITIATIVE
NYC Keyboard Fest
Founder and Director of an interdisciplinary initiative celebrating contemporary keyboard culture, synthesizers, composition, improvisation, electroacoustic music, and emerging creative technologies.
ARTIST-LED / PUBLIC PROGRAM
ELECTROACOUSTIC PROJECT
Vessels to Motherland
Co-founder, composer, pianist, and sound artist in an electroacoustic project where contemporary piano performance meets ambient electronics, synthesis, sound design, film scoring, and multimedia collaboration.
PIANO / ELECTRONICS / IMAGE
FOR STUDIOS, SCHOOLS, PARENTS & COLLABORATORS
Let’s make room for the sounds that are still becoming.
Get in touch to discuss creative music technology programs, private study, and collaborative projects. Let's turn knobs together in my fully equipped studio ready for practice, creating and recording.
Email: danica.borisavljevic3gmail.com Phone: 201.931.3347
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Field notes.
WRITING FROM THE PRACTICE
Teaching practice
Synthesis as ultimate self expression
Traditional instruments like a piano or violin have a fixed, pre-defined physical voice. A synthesizer, however, has no inherent identity until you give it one. This makes it an incredibly powerful canvas for personal storytelling. Through the lens of synthesis, self-expression is the ultimate act of sonic self-portrait. You are not just interpreting someone else’s instrument; you are building your own unique acoustic ecosystem from scratch, voltage by voltage. When students manipulate electricity through synthesis (which is less intimidating than it sounds - a.k.a. turning the right knobs!) they transcend the boundaries of standard musical notation. They are no longer limited to just choosing notes on a page. Instead, they are expressing abstract internal states—warmth, isolation, nostalgia, or fury—by physically altering the molecular structure of a sound wave.
Sound practice
Piano as a Sound Source
To view the piano purely through its black and white keys is to look at a locked door and ignore the vast cathedral inside. When we approach the piano creatively and entirely—as a physical monolith of wood, iron, and steel—the instrument transforms from a vehicle for melody into an active, breathing environment for raw sound art. When we introduce modern technology to this physical architecture, we are no longer just recording an acoustic instrument—we are dismantling it at a molecular level and rebuilding it in virtual space. Contact microphones attached directly to the soundboard or the iron frame catch the micro-vibrations of a scraped string ( granular synthesis) Processing this through software breaks the acoustic texture into thousands of microscopic audio "grains." A single, fleeting scrape of copper wire can be stretched, frozen, and scattered into an infinite, glassy cloud of ambient sound.
Synthesis
The Art of Forging Currents
Analog synthesis takes the fundamental, untamed energy of the universe—electricity—and channels it into emotion. A raw voltage is volatile and piercing, yet through intent and architecture, we shape it. We use filters to dim its blinding glare into a warm, melancholy shadow, and we use envelopes to coax a harsh spike of current into a tender, breathing swell. Every dial on a synthesizer is a physical interface between human emotion and electromagnetic physics. Analog voltage control is the underlying technology where physical electrical changes—specifically variations in voltage—directly determine a synthesizer's pitch, tone, and volume. Instead of computers sending digital code (1s and 0s), analog synthesizers route actual electricity through circuits to change how the instrument behaves.

