The title ‘Vida’ of Misha Cvijović's portrait album combines meanings from different languages – life, sight, healing and myth. The composer's music is equally multi-layered, resulting from her exploration of varying sonic and artistic perspectives. Booklet author Carl Rosman explains: ‘A keen awareness of stage and physicality is constantly present, in works whose language is typically gestural, eclectic, and direct – although not without irony and polyvalence.’

The album has three focal points: it begins with early compositions such as Lica Persefone, Tikkun Olam and Cirque du Soleil. As part of a young generation of composers from the former Yugoslavia who are significantly shaping the local contemporary music scene, Cvijović also uses the ⅞-time rhythm of the Balkan region in the latter work, among others. She transfers this into a kaleidoscopic sound world in which the trumpet (Marco Blaauw) stands out with short acrobatic solos. The album also includes works such as Penumbra, Carbon and Emotional Logic – Anger, which depart from the classical mainstream and take greater risks in improvisation and form, for example by expanding the ensemble with the timbres of accordion, baritone saxophone and electric guitar in Penumbra. With Iktsuarpok and Incandescent, the focus finally shifts to electronic and electroacoustic sound.

Five of these works were recorded especially for this album in collaboration with the Ensemble Musikfabrik and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Enno Poppe can also be heard, as well as Sebastian Berweck on the Minimoog and the Trio Splitsignals Berlin.