GORAN BREGOVIC
G oran Bregovic describes himself simply as contemporary composer. Why then does his “contemporary” sound different from music of other contemporary composers?
Because Goran is from the Balkans. And in the Balkans “contemporary” is different.
What does his orchestra for Weddings and Funerals composed of a gypsy brass band, traditional Bulgarian polyphonies, an electric guitar, traditional percussion, strings and Orthodox Church male singers, read on Bregovic’s score sheets? Echoes from Jewish and Gypsy weddings, chants from Orthodox and Catholic Church, Muslim invocations. His music comes from that terrible frontier where for centuries Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims made war and lived together. Music that our soul recognises instinctively and the body greets with an irresistible urge to dance.
B orn in Sarajevo of a Serbian mother and a Croatian father. After a few years of (very
unenthusiastic) music studies at the conservatory (violin), Goran forms his first group “The White Button” at the age of sixteen. Composer and guitar player (“I chose the guitar because guitar players always have most success with girls”), he admits his immoderate love for rock n'roll. "In those times, Rock had a capital role in our lives. It was the only way we could make our voice heard, and publicly express our discontent without risking jail (or just about)..."
Studies of philosophy and sociology would most certainly have landed him teacher of Marxist thought, had the gigantic success of his first record not decided otherwise. Follow fifteen years with his group "The White Button", marked by marathon-tours and endless sessions of autographing in which Goran plays youth idol in Eastern countries until he's sick and tired of it.
At the end of the eighties BREGOVIC takes time away from this permanent hustle-bustle to compose music for Kusturica’s "Times of the Gypsies", and to make his childhood dream come true: to live in a small house on an island in the Adriatic. The War in Yugoslavia shatters this, and many other dreams, and Goran has to abandon everything to find exile in Paris… starting point for roaming the world with his music that made him a honorary citizen of Buenos Aires, Tirana and Athens and honorary Doctor of Music from Sheffield University, UK.
MUSIC FOR MOVIES
Coming from the same background, the same generation, survivors of the same experiences, Goran BREGOVIC and Emir KUSTURICA formed a tandem which didn’t need words to communicate. After “Times of the Gypsies” Goran had a free hand to compose the original soundtrack for “Arizona Dream”. The music lives up to the film – poetical, original and incredibly enhancing. “One of the great things about Emir’s movies is that they show life exactly as it is – full of holes, hesitations and unexpected events. It’s this imperfect, unorganised side that I wanted to preserve above all. Even the songs recorded with Iggy are very under-produced. There’s just his voice and behind it a gypsy-orchestra blowing into old pre-war trumpets and cow’s horns. It’s really very simple.”
Patrice Chereau entrusts him with the music for “La Reine Margot”, Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. Goran delivers a majestic piece with rock accents.
The music for Emir Kusturica’s “Underground”, Palme d’Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, was also signed by Goran. But not the following film. A three year collaboration on “Underground” has worn everyone out and Emir has to find a whole new team for his next film.
Recently Goran composed spicy music with a “kletzmer” aroma for the “Train de Vie” of Radu MIHAELANU acclaimed by the critics in Venice, Sao Paulo, Berlin and by the public everywhere it was shown.
He has since devoted himself to the interpretation of his own music and lent himself to a second stage-career. Without completely abandoning the movies, however: Nana Djordjaze «1001 Recipes of a Cook in Love» in 2000, «27 Missing Kisses» in 2001, Unni STRAUME «Music for Weddings & Funerals» (original music and the main male role) in 2002, Venice Film Festival official selection. In 2004 Bregovic repeats the same adventure: he composes music and plays the main role in an Italian film entitled “Giorni dell’Abandono” (“The days of Abandon”) premiered in Autumn 2005, Venice Film Festival official selection.
MUSIC FOR THEATRE
“Silence of the Balkans” was a very ambitious multimedia project performed in 1997 in Thessaloniki, under the direction of Slovenian Tomaz PANDUR with video images by Boris MILJKOVIC. Then a collaboration with Teatro Stabile from Trieste for whom he wrote the stage music for a very unusual “Hamlet”, and Goran Bregovic starts enjoying writing for the theatre. Follows a collaboration with one of the most “fashionnable” Italian directors, Marco BAILANI for whom, commissioned by the Festival NOVECENTO in Palermo, he writes the music for “The Children’s Crusade” (created November 1999). Recently Bregovic wrote music for a stage setting of Dante's "Divine Comedy" (conceived as a triptych, of which the first part Inferno was premiered at the THALIA THEATRE in Hamburg in January 2001, followed in February 2002 by Purgatory and Paradise). The director is Goran’s long time work complice, Tomaz PANDUR from Slovenia.
In 2007 the Serbian National Theatre commissioned music and staged a ballet based on Duma’s novel “Queen Margot”.
MUSIC FOR CONCERTS:
For over ten years, since he abandoned pure rock in 1985, the music of BREGOVIC had never been performed live. This all changes in 1995 when, with a band of ten traditional musicians, a choir of fifty singers and a symphony orchestra, he undertakes a series of mega-concerts in Greece and Sweden followed by the concert given October 26th at the Forest National of Brussels for an audience of 7500. Very few concert performances in 1996 as the idea of a hundred and twenty performers on stage scared even the most enthusiastic promoters.
In June 1997, the group is reduced to fifty musicians for a two hour concert with the music he composed for films. And it’s one success after another. Bregovic undertakes a triumphal tour throughout Europe with his Wedding and Funeral Band presenting live his most beautiful pieces from the famous “Ederlezi” (Time of the Gypsies) to the “In the Death Car” (Arizona Dream) and the energetic “Kalasnikov” (Underground) taking off as delirious audience echoes the with the powerful “Juris” (Charge!!). The number of entries – between 3,500 and 10,000 per concert - and the concert given May 1st at the Piazza St. Giovanni in Rome in front of 500.000 people confirm beyond any doubt that his music now has a real impact on an international level.
Goran BREGOVIC continues his career, and the young local rock mega-star of the 70s and the 80s asserts his authority as a mature, successful, international composer.
MUSICAL COLLABORATIONS:
Like a happy grown up child, Goran is honoured by collaborations with talented performers from diverse cultures – people he would have asked for an autograph not so long ago: Iggy Pop, whom he totally reinvents (Arizona Dream 1993), Ofra Haza (La Reine Margot,1994), Cesaria Evora (Underground 1995), Scot WALKER in UK, Setzen Aksu in Turkey, George Dalaras in Greece, Kayah in Poland. More to come with the new album!
SELECTED RECORDINGS:
«Time of the Gypsies» Polygram/Universal
«Arizona Dream» Polygram/Universal
«Toxic Affair» Polygram/Universal
«La Reine Margot» Polygram/Universal
«Underground» Polygram/Universal
«Ederlezi» compilation Polygram/Universal
«Bregovic & Kayah» BMG Poland
«Songbook» Polygram/Universal
«Music for Films» Polygram/Universal
«Tales from Weddings and Funerals» Polygram/Universal
«Goran Bregovic’s Karmen…» Mercury/Universal
«Alkohol - Sljivovica» Mercury/Decca
«Alkohol – Champagne for Gypsies» Mercury/Decca
(released September 24 2012)
Goran’s new album “Champagne for Gypsies”, is a reaction to the extreme pressure that Gypsies (Roma) have been experiencing lately across Europe (expelled from France, Italy, houses burned in Hungary...). It seems unfair to cover real problems with invented problems – gypsies are not a problem of this world, they are talent of this world. Everyone is impressed by gypsies – be they unknown gypsy on your street corner, or be they called Charlie Chaplin, Mother Teresa, Elvis Presley or Django Reinhardt. This album is meant to remind us of our favourite musicians who left a trace in popular culture around the world – Gypsy Kings, Gogol Bordello, Florin Salam, Stéphane Eicher...
Special Projects
Giovanni FERETTI of the legendary Italian group CSI, art director of «Bologna 2000», asked Goran BREGOVIC to be the ambassador of music from the orthodox countries for a night-long fiesta on June 27. Goran called it "Hot Balkan Roots" and invited three brass bands (one from Bulgaria, one from Rumania and another one from Serbia) and a group of Russian female voices. A joint concert of BREGOVIC and CSI topped it all and the party was repeated on June 29 at the prestigious NUOVO AUDITORIUM DI ROMA.
To start off his Italian tour in Summer 2000, Goran concocted a "Big Wedding in Palermo" for the Santa Rosalia Celebration on July 14, for which he shared artistic direction with the famous musicologist and composer from Naples, Roberto de SIMONE. For just one very special night, Goran assembled artists from countries that he calls his «musical feeding-ground» - between Budapest and Istanbul. To Goran’s music and to images of video director from Belgrade, Boris MILJKOVIC, Slovenian and Greek dancers danced under direction of a gifted Rumanian choreographer , Edward CLUG. And once again he called on the brass bands (a wedding with no brass band is no wedding) to lead 80 brides and bridegrooms each from opposite parts of the beautiful town of Palermo to the central square where, around three in the morning, they met with Clug’s professional dancers and Goran’s Weddings and Funerals Band for a long final wedding dance.
In June 2002, Goran BREGOVIC united in the St. Denis Basilica (near Paris) three star singers from three religions with the Moscow orthodox choir, a string section from Tetouan in Morocco, and his Weddings and Funerals Orchestra, for a special project called “My Heart has become Tolerant” on the theme of reconciliation, commissioned by Festival of Sacred Music of St. Denis (that year entitled “From Bach to Bregovic”). Luciano Berio invited the same project to his Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome in July, another concert on the Esplanade of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Festival of Sacred Arts in Fez… and it can be said that another side of “contemporary music” composer has been added to Goran’s career.
In 2004 Goran BREGOVIC composed his first opera entitled “Bregovic’s Karmen with a Happy End”, the first Carmen with a K and a Balkan accent. A combination of naïve theatre and opera, “Karmen” was premiered in Italy on April 17 2004 and has since been performed over one hundred times. Written, composed and directed by Goran Bregovic (only a few quotes from Bizet’s “Carmen”), this gypsy opera is interpreted by the musicians of his Wedding and Funeral Band. Since recent publication of the album, a web-site has been created with music, scores for free use and information: http://karmen.artistes.universalmusic.fr/index_valid.php
2006 was marked by a project entitled “Forgive me, is this the way to the Future?” - Three letters - concerto for violin and two orchestras, commissioned by ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) for a tour of ten concerts in major European concert halls* in April 2007, interpreted by Goran’s Wedding & Funeral Band plus Kristjan JÄRVI’s ABSOLUTE ENSEMBLE from New York – all under the direction of Kristjan JÄRVI.
*Megaron - Athens, Accademia di Santa Cecilia - Rome, Konserthuset - Stockholm, Salle Grande Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte - Luxembourg, Theatre Des Champs Elysées - Paris, Philharmonie – Cologne, Concertgebouw - Amsterdam, Bozar - Brussels, Symphony Hall - Birmingham, Konzerthaus – Vienna.
Tours:
After tours across Europe and South America during the whole of 2002 and four triumphant concerts in Paris in November (two in the underground “Bataclan” and two in the temple of classical music “Théâtre des Champs Elysées”), in 2003 Bregovic toured Scandinavia, France, Rumania, Spain. In June 2003 a rendering of “Tolerant Heart” at the Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco and at the Guggenheim Foundation in Bilbao, and then two incredible sold out concerts in the legendary LUNA PARK Stadium in Buenos Aires. Then Summer Festivals across Europe.
Very little touring in Autumn/Winter 2003-2004 (only a short series of concerts in Switzerland in March 2004), as time was dedicated to “Goran Bregovic’s Karmen with a Happy End”. Since then, over a hundred and fifty performances: a “Karmen” from St. Petersburg to Jerusalem, from Buenos Aires to Seoul. A tour in Italy in April, concerts in France, Germany, Bergen Festival in Norway in May 2004… then yet more concerts in Italy, Germany & France in the Summer season… In the Fall three concerts in Belgium, then the Baltic countries, Vienna and the Chech Republic (plus one concert in Bratislava in Slovakia). In November Argentina again with three concerts in Buenos Aires and one in Cordoba, and then in December 2004 five concerts of “Karmen” at the Piccolo Teatro Festival Season in Milan, some more in Cagliari (Sardegna) and (yet another) short tour of Italy…