Femixeta 6.0 : A new compilation of alternative female music in Serbia, selected by Ida Prester.

The word Femixeta (femme+mixer) was coined by project Femix—a program for affirmation of female creative work launched in 2010. by the “Organization for the Promotion of Activism”. Femixeta is an unique compilation of songs and a yearly cross-section of female musical creativity. Through pervasive genre diversity during the past six published compilations, Femixeta presented over seventy artists and bands – some of which had their public debut.

Elaborating on their attitude towards the importance of networking and public promotion, Femix branches out to different areas of art and culture. Every year, visual identity and cover art design is entrusted to a different young artist. So far, Milica Mrvić, Pishcotta, Aleksandra Ninković, Tamara Brčić, Manja Lekić and Natalia Zwick showed off their design skills. The aim is to encourage visibility and participation of women in the public scene, and create a wider space for those that create or creatively explore.

Another model for promoting equality and an active, creative society was launched as an internet campaign “Add your note”, which included female musicians sharing their photo under the same slogan, encouraging engagement in the music industry. Editors have so far been Bojana Vunturišević, Ognjenka Lakićević, Milica Mitić, and finally Ida Prester, who selected songs for this year’s compilation- dominated by a distinct pop sound.

Although the competition got a great number of instrumental compositions, Ida gave advantage to tracks with female vocals, explaining that she finds it plays an important part in this kind of presentation of female creativity. The sixth volume of Femixeta was published in cooperation with Mikser Festival, with the support of the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, and is available on Bandcamp.

Project Femix also includes Femix Fest – a music festival for female artists, featuring acts that were previously published on Femixeta.

Serbia, whose artists are the main focus of the compilation, has a diverse music scene, to which the project is adding more artists every year. Prompted by research indicating that from 2009 to 2013, only around 12% of performances on major Serbian and European festivals were by female artists, and that most music charts in 2014 featured overwhelmingly more than half male artists or bands, Femix attempts to draw attention to this global phenomenon and turn the situation around.

British radio station allfm.org, and their head presenter Paul Smith, recognized Femixeta as an excellent example of promoting female artists, and had an entire series featuring female musicians from the Balkans.

In summer 2015. Femix organized drum lessons for girls, as a means of spreading their work and inspiring a future generation of Femixeta artists.

A selection of tracks from Femixeta can be found on Play the music