Jela Mihailovic

Jela Mihailovic (born 6 October 1987 in Valjevo, Serbia), is a Belgrade-Los Angeles based cello player performing both classical and contemporary music under the artistic name JelaCello. From the very beginning of her education until graduating with highest marks at Faculty of Music in Belgrade (bachelor, master and post-graduate studies ), she participated in numerous competitions and won several prestigious national and international awards. Her specific style of performing was shaping through cooperation with some of the renowned cellists of world music scene, such as Xenia Jankovic, Stefan Popov, Mineo Hayashi, Mark Kosover, Gary Hoffman, Leonid Gorokhov, Gautier Capuçon, Christian Pierre La Marca, David Strange and many others.

Early career
Through her solo career, Jela was often performing original pieces written for her and adopted to her unique musical expression. The one of these was World Premiere of a piece “Black Swan” written by Aleksandar Simic, which Jela performed on the occasion of 10th anniversary of Belgrade International Cello Fest held in July 2013.

2011
In 2011, Jela recorded the album named “Clash” which was released by the biggest in the region and with 60 years tradition record company, PGP-RTS. Jela played eleven titles which are compositions from different genres, centuries, tastes and affinities, compositions from the time of Bach, Ravel and Brahms, until the 21st century (Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles), all arranged for solo cello and symphony orchestra, produced by famous producer Aleksandar Habich. Album was praised by critics with sold out first edition and the video of Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze had for a young cello player, incredible 1.500.000 views.

2012
In order to perform live the music from the album “Clash”, in 2012, Jela formed her own “Jela Cello Power Symphony Orchestra”, consisting of sixty young, skilled and classically educated musicians. During 2012, Jela and her orchestra had sold out tour, and in process earned them the role of official ambassadors for Belgrade in bid to become cultural capital of Europe in 2020. Their music and this appointment resulted in invitations from around the Europe for playing in different cultural manifestations of both classical and contemporary music. Jela was awarded by the prestigious society award "Golden Shield" and "Golden Charter", which is awarded for dedicated and long-term work and creative contributions to the dissemination of culture, traditionally awarded by the Cultural and Educational Community of Republic of Serbia. This award was given to Jela at the ceremony, 18 April 2012 at the National Theatre in Belgrade.

Present
Presently, Jela is enrolled in Doctors Degree Studies at the Megatrend University, preparing with her “Jela Cello Power Symphony Orchestra” European tour and in the same time, preparing material for new album which will be released in package with DVD in fall 2014.

Website: www.jelacello.com Record label: PGP-RTS