Mile Novkovic of Vladicin Han Wins Top Trumpet at Guca

The stage in Dragacevo fell silent only after August 9 had become the past. Sixteen orchestras that had earned their place in the finale through earlier rounds played from 6 p.m. onward, and the winners’ names were read out in the early hours of August 10, in front of a crowd that had not gone home. This year’s top trumpet at Guca is Mile Novkovic of Vladicin Han.

When he stepped up to collect the award, he did not pretend to be unmoved.

“Thank you so much for this award. This is something I have genuinely waited and dreamed about for a long time. It is not easy to win in this kind of competition and take first place. I am truly overjoyed, and this award means a great deal to me.”

The line about waiting is not a stock line of gratitude. Nobody reaches the Guca finale through a single performance, it takes qualifying rounds that stretch over months, and the top trumpet award is the only one in this business that follows a musician into their biography as a title, with no date and no explanation attached.

Behind Novkovic, the second trumpet of the 65th Dragacevo Trumpet Festival is Marijan Krstic of Zaguzanje, and the third is Nemanja Ametovic of Bojnik. In the orchestra category, the jury gave first place to the Vasiljevic orchestra of Pozega, second to Isidora Zecirovic’s orchestra of Bojnik, and third to Stanislav Antic’s orchestra of Zaguzanje.

The rest of the list reads as follows:

• best folk song: Braca Ilic of Pozega
• best danced kolo: Marko Gligorijevic’s orchestra
• best cocek: Sinisa Stankovic’s orchestra of Zaguzanje
• best bass player: Martin Petrovic, from Stanislav Antic’s orchestra
• best drummer: Emanuel Zecirovic
• best tenor horn player: Oliver Ivanovic
• Golden Apple award: Milovan Petrovic of Uzice

The jury heard one thing, the crowd another

The only award at Guca that is not decided by the professional jury but by the people standing in front of the stage is called the Golden Trumpet, and this year it went to Vladimir Kuzmanovic. His name does not appear anywhere else on the list of winners, which means the festival’s two verdicts did not line up.

That split is more interesting than it looks. The jury listens for tone, intonation, ensemble discipline and clean execution, things that can be measured and explained. The crowd in Dragacevo votes for the trumpeter who lifted them that particular evening, and its yardstick is tied irreversibly to a single moment. When the two lists diverge, what emerges is an accurate cross section of what Guca actually is: a rule bound competition staged in the middle of a folk fair, where the same performance passes through two entirely different filters at once.

Why did this year’s list cluster in the south?

The places that keep recurring on the winners’ list are not from the immediate area around the festival itself. Zaguzanje shows up next to the second trumpet, the third orchestra, the cocek award, the best bass player and the best young trumpeter. Bojnik is tied to the third trumpet and the runner up orchestra. Vladicin Han produced the winner. Western Serbia answered through Pozega, which took both first place among orchestras and the folk song award, and through Uzice.

Guca is described as a Dragacevo celebration, but this year the competitive side of it did not stay in Dragacevo. The cocek award, the category where different playing schools are easiest to tell apart, went to an orchestra from Zaguzanje, and the same village also produced the best bass player and the best young trumpeter. The top trumpet and the best orchestra ended up on opposite ends of the same map, one in Pcinja District, the other in Zlatibor District.

The next generation is already here

In the youth category, first place among orchestras went to Veljko Vasiljkovic’s orchestra of Lepenica, and Mladen Krstic of Zaguzanje was named best young trumpeter, a title we reported on earlier during the festival. Second place in that category went to Mladen Krstic’s own orchestra, third to Albert Ametovic’s orchestra of Bojnik. The surnames match the senior competition, and so do the villages.

That answers the question asked around Guca every year, whether there is anyone to carry the trumpet forward. There is, and from the same households. Trumpet playing in Serbia works as a craft passed down within a family and a village, not through a school system, so in the youth competition it is already clear which directions the serious ensembles will come from.

Novkovic took the title in a year when the festival drew more attention for its guests than for the competition itself. For a trumpeter from Vladicin Han, that matters less. The Guca top trumpet title is won once, it is not handed to the same man again every season, and the list carrying his name will still be cited long after everyone has forgotten who sat in the front row that night.