Annex 1

Singapore Arts Festival 2005

Goran Bregovic and his Band

PROGRAMME

  1. TDV (Scherzo)("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  2. Polizia molto arrabbiata("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  3. Cupcik
  4. Ederlezi Avela
  5. Underground Tango -Ausencia("Underground")
  6. Hop-Hop-Hop("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  7. Maki, Maki("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  8. Cocktail Molotov("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  9. Borino Oro("Time of the Gypsies")
  10. Money("Arizona Dream")
  11. La Nuit – Elo-Hi("La Reine Margot")
  12. So nevo si("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  13. Wedding Cocek("Underground")
  14. Sex("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  15. Aven Ivenda("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  16. Te Kuravle("Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals")
  17. Ringe Ringe Raja("Underground")
  18. Prawo do Lewega("Bregovic-Kayah")
  19. In the Death Car("Arizona Dream")
  20. Ederlezi("Times of the Gypsies")
  21. Mjesecina (Moonlight)("Underground")

Annex 2

Singapore Arts Festival 2005

Goran Bregovic and his Band

CREDIT LIST for Goran Bregovic and his Band

Goran BREGOVIC:composer, guitar/synthesiser, vocals

Alen ADEMOVIC:goc (traditional drum), vocals

Bokan STANKOVIC: trumpet 1

Dragan RISTOVSKI: trumpet 2

Ekrem DEMIROVIC:trumpet 3, vocals

Stojan DIMOV: saxophone, clarinet

Ivan JOVANOVIC: trombone 1

Milos MIHAJLOVIC: trombone 2

Aleksandar RAJKOVIC: trombone 3, glockenspiel

Dejan MANIGODIC: tuba
Vaska JANKOVSKA: vocals solo

Ludmila RADKOVA-TRAJKOVA:vocals

Lidia DAKOVA-ILIEVA:vocals

Dusan VASIC Sound engineer

Annex 3

Singapore Arts Festival 2005

Goran Bregovic and his Band

Roots in the Balkans where he stems from, head in the 21st Century which he fully inhabits, Goran Bregovic's music marries sounds of a gypsy brass band with traditional Bulgarian polyphonies, those of a guitar and traditional percussion with a curious rock accent….all against a background of a bedevilled string orchestra and deep sonorities of a male choir, creating music that our soul recognises instinctively and the body greets with an irresistible urge to dance.

Born 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 the Adriatic coast. The War in Yugoslavia shatters this, and many other dreams, and Goran has to abandon everything to find exile in Paris…

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.” What Goran doesn’t say is that it’s probably one of Iggy’s best performances over the past ten years. What he doesn’t say either is that this apparent simplicity belongs only to artists of exceptional talent.

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 “White Cat Black Cat”.

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 «27 Missing Kisses» in 2001, Unni STRAUME «Music for Weddings & Funerals» in 2002 (original music and the main male role). In 2004 Bregovic repeats the same adventure: he composes music and plays the main role in an Italian film entitled “Giorni di Abandono” (“The days of Abandon”) to be premiered in Spring 2005.

MUSIC FOR THEATRE

“Silence of the Balkans” was a very ambitious multimedia project performed in 1997 at 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. Following a collaboration with one of the most “in” 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 accomplice, Tomaz Pandur from Slovenia.

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 symphonic orchestra, he undertakes a series of 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. He 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 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 amazed to be collaborating with such important 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.

SELECTED RECORDINGS

«Le Temps de Gitans»Polygram/Universal

«Arizona Dream» Polygram/Universal

«Toxic Affair» Polygram/Universal

«La Reine Margot»Polygram/Universal

«Underground»Polygram/Universal

«Ederlezi» compilationPolygram/Universal

«Bregovic & Kayah»BMG Poland

«Songbook»Polygram/Universal

«Music for Films»Polygram/Universal

«Tales from Weddings and Funerals»Polygram/Universal

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 and 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. Lucciano Berio invited the same project to his Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome in July, another concert on the Esplanade of the GuggenheimMuseum 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.

The latest adventure is 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. Written, composed and directed by Goran Bregovic.

At present Goran Bregovic is working on two projects/commissions: a commission from The Piccolo Teatro in Milan for Goran Bregovic to make his own version ofWeill/Brecht's "Threpenny Opera" directed by the young opera director Carsen. Projected opening for February 2006; and a sequel to “My Heart has become Tolerant” to be commissioned by ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) for a tour of 6-8 concerts in April 2007, conducted by the young conductor Kristjan JARVI.

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 (plus the honorary citizenship!). 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, some ninety performances from April to December: a “Karmen” tour in Italy in April, concerts in France, Germany, Bergen Festival in Norway in May 2004… then more concerts in Italy, Germany & France in the Summer season… In the Fall three concerts in Belgium, then the Baltic countries, Vienna and the ChechRepublic (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…

2005 will bring a recording of “Karmen…” and more tours in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Israel. Also an opening of the Asian continent - a tour including Tai-Pei, Singapore and Seoul is planned for June 2005. Mexico in April and Quebec and the US for July 2005? Then, 2006 should take Bregovic’s music further: Hong-Kong, Australia, New Zealand… gypsy life full to the brim continues for this eclectic composer figure.

And not the least… a prize bearing the name of Italian Nobel prize winner “Eugenio Montale” for lyrics will be discerned in April 2005 to Goran Bregovic (after Bob Dylan in 2003 and Leonard Cohen in 2004).