Nikola Komatina

Nikola Komatina hails from Serbia but currently lives in Germany. He studied with Grzegorz Stopa both at the Conservatory that is part of Vienna’s Private University and at the Detmold Academy of Music and also with Mie Miki at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Even while he was still a student, he was already working with other eminent accordionists and teachers, including Mika Väyrynen, Vladimir Besfamilnov, Friedrich Lips, Alberdi Iñaki, Yuri Shishkin, Radomir Tomić, Vojin Vasović, Janne Rättyä and Juan-José Mosalini.

Nikola Komatina was still relatively young when he won more than twenty prizes in various competitions and received awards in several European countries. In 2015 he was awarded a grant from the regional government of Mark Brandenburg. Two years earlier he had received the Music Prize of the GWK-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Westfälischen Kulturarbeit (Society for the Promotion of Cultural Projects in Westphalia). In 2014 he won both the first prize and the audience prize at the Music & Communication Competition in Detmold. He has received additional support from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, the Lieselotte Klein Foundation and the Werner Richard-Dr. Carl Dörken Foundation. Further grants have come from the Society of Friends and Patrons of the Detmold Academy of Music and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Nikola Komatina’s repertory extends from the Baroque to the present day. He appears all over the world both as a soloist and as a chamber musician and has performed in many leading concert halls, including the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, the Düsseldorf Tonhalle, the Bagno Konzertgalerie in Steinfurt and the Teatro Municipal Punta Arenas in Chile. International festivals at which he has appeared include the Bach Fest, the Düsseldorf Festival and the Amsterdam Cello Biennale. In 2012 he and the cellist Mladen Miloradovic joined forces to form the duo Akkcellorando. Nikola Komatina is also a member of the Fona-Formation Neues Akkordeon group of artists. He makes regular guest appearances with other ensembles such as the Signum saxophone quartet, the Notabu Ensemble, the Ensemble S201, the One Earth Orchestra, the Vino Rosso Ensemble and the Detmold Chamber Orchestra. On the radio he has been heard live in Ton-Art Campus on WDR 3.

Nikola Komatina works closely with many contemporary composers, including Fabien Lévy, Gerhard Stäbler, Gordon Kampe, Markus Stockhausen, Frank Zabel, Volker Staub, Boris Filanovsky, Roman Pfeifer, Thomas Neuhaus and Günter Steinke. In addition to his commitment to both new and classical music, he has made a name for himself as a passionate proponent of Balkan folk songs, which he performs in his own arrangements for voice and accordion.