Dejan Despić (1930), composer, music writer, theoretician and pedagogue, was born in Belgrade, where he finished primary/secondary school and secondary music school. He studied composition with Marko Tajčević and conducting with Mihailo Vukdragović at the Belgrade Academy of Music, graduating in 1955. Between 1956 and 1965 he taught theoretical subjects at the Mokranjac Music School, and from 1965 to his retirement (1995) at the Belgrade Academy of Music (today the Faculty of Music). He was elected corresponding (1985) and full member (1994) of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 1999 Despić is secretary of the Department of Fine Arts and Music.