GORAN BREGOVIC
and his Wedding and Funeral 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 an electric 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 dell'Abandono" ("The days of Abandon") premiered in Autumn 2005.
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.
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 tallented 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 > 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
Some critics have called Tales & Songs from Weddings and Funerals his neo-classical album. In it he presents a range of musicians playing his various musical styles - from tango and reggae to Gypsy brass band music.
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 a 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 naive 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.frThe latest adventure was a project entitled "Forgive me, is this the way to the Future?" - Three letters for three prophets, 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 - all under the direction of Kristjan JÄRVI.
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 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.
2005 brought more tours in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Israel. Also an opening of the Asian continent - a tour including Taipei, Singapore and Seoul in June 2005, then Summer Festivals in Italy, Spain, France. After Bremen in Germany, St. Petersburg & Moscow and a French tour in November, "Goran Bregovic's Karmen with a Happy End" played all December in Paris in "Le Cabaret Sauvage".
In June 2005, Bregovic's old legendary group "White Button" (Bjelo Dugme) came back together for a sold-out reunion tour of the capitals of three former Yugoslav republics. An audience of 70.000 in Sarajevo and Zagreb, and 200.000 in Belgrade proved him right in the hope that people separated by wars could at least share and enjoy a common musical heritage.
2006 After a tour of France, some concerts in Spain and Italy, July 2006 offered a first opening of North American territories for Bregovic's music: an extraordinary concert in a square in Montreal, within the Montreal Jazz Festival for an audience of 150-200.000, one concert in Chicago's magnificent Millennium Park (4.000 seated and 7.000 standing) and one concert in the Avery Fisher Hall within the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. Montreal and Chicago were free concerts offered respectively by the Festival and the City of Chicago, and the 2.800 seats of the Avery Fisher Hall were entirely sold out two weeks before the concert.
After a Summer tour of festivals in France, Hungary, Italy and Greece, a return to Korea: Seong Nam - a concert of "Tales and Songs for Weddings and Funerals" with local musicians and Bregovic's Wedding and Funeral Band on August 31st, and "Goran Bregovic's Karmen with a Happy End" in Seoul on September 2. Little touring in Europe then work on the new projects and the CD of "Karmen."
2007 More tours in Italy, France, Spain in January-February. A first visit to Australia and more sun on Canary Islands and Ile de la Réunion in March. Then colder places - Oslo, Island in May. Then the usual Summer tours with a come-back to Poland after a long absence. Mexico in September, Russia in November... Gypsy life full to the brim continues for this eclectic composer figure.
· 
Goran Bregovic, ყველაზე თანამედროვე კომპოზიტორი
