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Goran Bregovic PDF Print E-mail
BregovicGoran 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. 
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 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.