Stanislav Binički was born on 27 July 1872 in the village of Jasika, near Kruševac, Principality of Serbia. He studied in Belgrade and Munich with German composer Josef Rheinberger. Binički became the first director of the Opera Sector of the National Theatre in Belgrade in 1889. In 1899, he began collaborating with the Belgrade Military Orchestra. He enriched the orchestra's musical repertoire with pieces such as Franz Schubert's 8th Symphony, Richard Wagner's overture to "Rienzi", Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dances, and Felix Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. The first Serbian opera, "At Dawn" (), was written by Binički and premiered in 1903. Music critics John Warrack and Ewan West describe the opera as a pioneering work and praise Binički's ingenious use of contrasting musical styles to depict the struggle between Serbs and Turks.