From the Balkans to the world

Hailed as the nonpareil ambassador of Balkan music for more than a decade, Goran Bregovic has introduced music from ethnic groups across Europe to the rest of the world. The composer has taken the sounds of Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Bulgarians, Greeks and Romani, mixed it with a crucible of rock, classic, reggae and tango, and turned it into an unmistakable sound. 

 

Before he became known to the world, Goran Bregovic was already a famous rock star in his own country. His international career took off after Serbian director, Emir Kusturica, invited him to score several of his award-winning films. He was shot to fame with the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, which has performed in well-known venues around the globe, having reached an audience of more than a million people.

 

Born in 1950 in Sarajevo, to a Serbian mother and a Croatian father, Bregovic was perhaps destined to make music his tool to express the mixed and complex feelings about ethnicity in life. He studied violin at a conservatory of music in the early years, yet he found rock appealled to him so much more. 

 

At the age of 16, he formed the rock band, The White Button, which gained immense popularity throughout Eastern Europe, selling more than six million albums, and confirming the band’s idol status in the eyes of most young people. But the outbreak of the Balkan wars forced its disbandment. 

 

Just at this point, Bregovic was invited by his longtime friend and film director Emir Kusturica to compose film scores. He flew to Paris, not knowing that another musical journey was going to unfold. Their partnership covered Time of the Gypsies (1988), Arizona Dream (1993) and Underground (1995), all of which received such critical acclaim that the world sat up and listened. 

 

In 1994, another score – a rock symphony for the film La Reine Margo directed by Patrice Chéreau– was a phenomenal success too. Borat, a ‘mockumentary’ that created great buzz in 2006, also featured his music as the soundtrack. 

 

The silver screen aside, Bregovic has also made his mark in theatre. Between 1997 and 2001, he partnered with theatre director Tomaz Pandur in Silence of the Balkans and Divine Comedy, and in 2004, completed his first opera, Bregovic’s Karmen with a Happy End. The multimedia production by Peter Greenaway, Blue Planet, brought to Macau in 2012, features live music by Bregovic, offering audiences a nice smack of music à la Eastern Europe.  

 

In 1985, Bregovic declared he would quit rock music and spent the next 10 years backstage, away from the limelight. It was not until 1995, when he formed a sizable orchestra of 120 pieces, that he went back on stage. In June 1997, he sized it down to 50 (and sometimes 20 to facilitate live performances). Inspired by brass bands from Eastern European villages, he decided to form the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, to play his own compositions. Under his direction, the Orchestra garnered popular acclaim when it went on tour and performed in various well-known concert halls around the world. 

 

They standout with an eclectic mix of gypsy brass bands, Bulgarian voices, traditional percussion, strings and electrical guitars, creating music that runs the gamut of human emotions, from romance, passion, misery and happiness, to wild abandonment.  His later releases of numerous solo albums also went on to win immense popularity.  Bregovic has collaborated with pop musicians from around the world including Iggy Pop, Ofra Haza, Cesária Évora, Scot Walker, Setzen Aksu, George Dalaras and the Gypsy Kings.

 

Bregovic will bring his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra’s electrifying mood to Macau in his upcoming concert in June. Coming from all over the Balkans, band members include a six-piece gypsy brass band, a traditional Bulgarian female vocal ensemble, an orthodox male chorus and a string quartet. They will perform pieces from their latest album, Champagne for Gypsies, and other hits from his impressive career. 

 

This work may well be considered as a retrospective showcase of Bregovic the music maker. As he has said, “My album is a response to the extreme pressure that Gypsies have been experiencing in Europe…. Gypsies are not a problem of this world – they have always been one of the talents of this world. In this concert I pay a toast to their talent, which has inspired composers throughout the centuries.” 

 

Allegedly all those who attend the concerts come out sweating, because the music stirs up the dancing soul in people, and whenever the band starts playing Bregovic’s classics, the audience goes wild. Just as he once bragged, “If you don’t go crazy, you’re not normal!”