A member of the interwar Prague group generation of Serbian composers along with other colleagues such as Mihovil Logar, Ljubica Marić or Milan Ristić, he studied in the Belgrade Music School and the Stanković Music School, and later in the Prague Conservatory under Rudolf Karel.
As a teacher he worked in the Belgrade Academy of Music from 1940 and directed its Composition and Orchestration department, retiring in 1977.
[1] Orchestral music had a central role in his output, including six symphonies, four symphonic poems on Serbian folk epics (all written during World War II) and ten concertos, making him one of the most devoted Yugoslav composers to this genre.
[2] He was the first Serbian composer to write concertos for instruments such as the clarinet and the bassoon, as well as song cycles for voice and orchestra.
[3] During his student years in Prague he assimilated to an extent the atonal expressionist avantgarde of the time, though he wasn't interested in Schönberg's serialism nor Hába's microtonality.