dossier de presse       2005

lien vers :     Edito    Keram   Pathak   Trunzler   Cortes   Rosa   Buttler    
 
Edito


  Pour la dixième fois, nous serons là ensemble pour partager une nouvelle aventure. Pour la dixième fois, nous découvrirons d'autres artistes, justifiant la vocation originale de notre festival et par là même tenter modestement de préserver d'autres cultures menacées. Pour la dixième fois, nous avons réussi à boucler une programmation rendue de plus en plus délicate par les restrictions budgétaires des différentes instances partenaires ...
  Alors nous avons troqué nos chameaux voyageurs par des émail baladeurs, l'autobus coloré par des fax noir et blanc, le 4x4 par un v.t.t. et la mort dans l'âme censuré nos projets grandioses (les Inuits de l'Artique, les Pygmés du Botswana ...).
  Mais rassurez-vous, nous avons fait des miracles sans aller à Lourdes, ni gravir le Karabagh. Le premier sera arménien avec le groupe Keram. A travers leur histoire tumultueuse, malgré un génocide abominable, ils ont su préserver, enrichir un patrimoine musical exceptionnel.
  Puis un pays incontournable, l'Inde, un milliard d'habitants, une diversité culturelle extraordinaire, alors nous avons choisi Ashok Pathak "le grand maître" incontesté du sitar en lui promettant ...une centaine de milliers de spectateurs...
  Yvan Trunzler, une trajectoire musicale atypique, alors pour marquer encore plus la différence, une rencontre découverte l'après-midi et un concert à 7h du matin pour se réveiller différemment avec un raga et le chant dhrupad à découvrir... sans coq perturbateur.
  Et maintenant, un hommage à notre ami José Piles parti charmer les Sévillanes dans l'au-delà et qui mieux que son guitariste Andres Cortes et toute la famille flamenca pour le lui rendre ... sans larmes évidemment ...
  Et comme c'est une année à miracles, la flamboyante Renata Rosa, succombant aux charmes méditerranéens, fera une halte dans l'Uzège ... en lui garantissant une ambiance tropicale durant le spectacle ...
  Quant au dernier concert, si ce devait être "le chant du cygne" du Festival Autres Rivages, nous ne pouvions que sortir les violons des écrins avec une très, très grande chanteuse rom, Ljiljana Buttler, "la Mère de l'âme gitane".

Bon festival.    



  A la saison des cigales, tant pis pour les fourmis...       Viv

 
 

Mardi 19 juillet
à Sanilhac/Sagriès 22h

KERAM
Musique traditionnelle arménienne

  L'ensemble de musique traditionnelle Keram est l'aboutissement de cours de musique traditionnelle dispensés depuis les années 1980 au sein du CEDCA Keram Baghdassarian à Marseille.
  Il a bénéficié de l'aide d'éminents musiciens d'Arménie, tels que Khatchadour Avédissian, Gaguik Mouradian, Yeghiché Manoukian, et bien d'autres encore.
  Le répertoire de l'orchestre est constitué de pièces permettant d'avoir un aperçu général des différents aspects de la musique traditionnelle : danses populaires ou à caractère ethnographique, chant des achough (troubadours), chansons liées à la vie de tous les jours, pièces instrumentales anciennes ou compositions contemporaines.
  Les instruments utilisés sont pour la plupart communs à tous les peuples de la région. L'originalité réside dans la facture. Ainsi le kamantcha, le tär ou le kanone ont des timbres qui s'accordent parfaitement aux intonations et au style du chant arménien.
  Comme autres instruments, on peut citer aussi le santour, le oud, le kamani, la pampir, le shevi, le peloul, le pecou, le dehol sans oublier le doudouk et le zourna...
C'est dire l'extraordinaire richesse de sonorités liée à de superbes voix que nous propose cet orchestre d'une quinzaine de musiciens.


 

Jeudi 21 juillet
au chateau de Flaux 22h

Ashok PATHAK
Cythar,
musique indienne


  Le Surbahar, étonnant et rarissime version basse du sitar, est apparu au début du 19è. Cependant, à l'écoute de la pureté sonore de ce luth imposant, on pourrait imaginer qu'il perdurait depuis des âges.

  L'idée de son créateur, musicien de cour, ancêtre de Vilayar Khan était d'aborder l'élaboration des ragas en ayant à sa disposition le maximum de possibilités expressives pour faire mieux entendre les srutis, ces hauteurs de notes calibrées au micro-ton, qui donnent sa forme et sa plénitude aux ragas.
  On compte sur les doigts les joueurs de surbahar qui se produisent en public et écouter les sonorités si ensorcelantes d'Ashok Pathak au surbahar est une expérience unique. On nage dans le Son... Outre l'incroyable talent de cet artiste étonnamment discret, cela s'explique : il appartient à une famille de musiciens qui a forgé sa prope école stylistique et lui a donné son propre nom : celui de la pathak Ghjarana.
  On imagine difficilement qu'un tel instrument puisse exister : il faut l'entendre pour le croire, mais cela fait partie du génie organologique des luths indiens. La forme, le son et les possibilités si expressives du surbahar en font l'instrument de la solitude totale, celle qui oblige l'artiste, comme mis à nu, à tout ré-inventer.
On pourrait le comparer aux pièces pour violoncelle seul de J.S. Bach et c'est tout dire ...


 

Vendredi 22 juillet
à Flaux à 7h
à Aigaliers 17h

Yvan TRUNZLER
Chants Dhrupad


  De 1978 à 1980, il s'installe en Inde, à Bénarès pour débuter son apprentissage vocal.
C'est en 1981 qu'il rejoint les frères Dagar pour suivre leur enseignement au Dhrupad Center à Bhopal.
  Entre 1987 et 1990, il donne ses premiers concerts en Inde et en Europe. De 1990 à 1995, il repart perfectionner son art, acquérant peu à peu un niveau professionnel, étant un des rares occidentaux à l'avoir atteint.
  La critique indienne est à son égard fort élogieuse : "une remarquable performance pour Yvan Trunzler, où l'enseignement d'Ustad Zia Dagar est parvenu à transmettre une grande dextérité dans la modulation et la production de la voix". (Times of India).
  "L'expresson vocale montre une compréhensien totale de l'expression indienne et un contrôle certain de l'intonation, des micro-intervalles et du rythme. Il a acquis une connaissance remarquable de l'esprit du rag indien. Ses glissandis et ses effets de modulation laissent rêveurs". (Sunday Observer Delhi).
  Actuellement, il enseigne à Lyon et dans différentes villes de France ainsi qu'aux Ateliers d'Ethnomusicologie à Genève.


 

Samedi 23 juillet à St Quentin La Poterie 22h

Familla CORTES & Maria and Co
Flamenco puro


  En vous promenant dans les rues d'Uzès, en buvant un pastis au comptoir d'un bistrot, n'avez-vous pas remarqué quelque chose de bizarre ? Des conversations plus feutrées, une attente de quoi, de qui ? Et puis on prend conscience que celui que l'on espère ne viendra plus.
  José Piles a préféré rejoindre Bacan, Sabicas, le Camaron dans un ailleurs peuplé de Sévillanes aux jupes multicolores et nous l'espérons, le coeur chaviré par le cante ...
  Avec sa guitare magique, aux hasards des bodégas ou sur des scènes plus prestigieuses où l'on chante pour des fortunes ou des misères, enregistrant ensemble Soledad, un disque de pur bonheur, Andres Cortes l'a suivi pendant de nombreuses années, obligeant notre ami cantaor à sublimer la solea, à réveiller le fandango ou quelques chants "d'aller-retour" remplis de nostalgie.
  Mais lui, il ne reviendra pas; alors, qui mieux que Nene, son fils déjà un grand chanteur et toute la Famille Cortes pouvaient lui rendre un tel hommage ...
  Mais, rassurez-vous, la tristesse ne sera pas de mise, José Piles n'aimait pas les mouchoirs.
  Les zapateo claqueront sur le parquet, les palmas résonneront dans la nuit pour une grande fiesta gitane.


 

Dimanche 24 juillet
à Saint-Siffret 22h

Renata ROSA
& Zunido da MATA
Nordeste brésilien


  Jeune artiste née à São Paulo, Renata ROSA vit aujourd'hui à Recife, où elle a depuis longtemps plongé aux sources des traditions musicales d'une région qui s'étend du nord de l'état du Pernambuco jusqu'aux rives du fleuve São Francisco dans l'état de l'Alagoas, Nordeste du Brésil.
  A la rabeca et de sa vix puissante, elle compose et écrit des chants qui explorent la trame des musiques traditionnelles nordestines : Maracatu rural dérivé d'anciennes danses guerrières, coco et toré aux origines à la fois indiennes autochtones et africaines, cavalo marinho inspiré d'une forme de théâtre de rue de Pernambuco ou forro des bals nordestins.
  Son répertoire explore ses propres compositions, chansons de maîtres et musiques populaires qu'elle enrichit de structures rythmiques et poétiques originales tirées de son expérience personnelle de références urbaines et contemporaines.
  L'interprétation proposée est à la fois créative et respectueuse de l'aspect spirituel de la tradition, où l'esprit et le corps, le chant et la danse ne font qu'un. Elle sera accompagnée de Seu Luiz Paixao, maître de rabeca, de 2 percussionnistes, d'un joueur de viola, cavaco et bandola, une choriste et un bassiste.
  Un spectacle où polyphonies vocales, percussions et danses vous transporteront dans un univers festif trop méconnu en France.


 

Mardi 26 juillet à Arpaillargues 22h

Ljiljana BUTTLER
Chants de Bosnie Herzégovine


  Née à Belgrade en 1944, dans une famille de musiciens, elle est la fille d'une chanteuse et d'un accordéoniste. Très jeune, elle étudia le chant et le piano à Bijelijina, une petite ville au nord de la Bosnie. Un soir de concert, sa mère malade, Ljiljana la remplace, et c'est le début d'une grande carrière. Déjà privé à la naissance de son père, sa mère l'abandonne peu après.
  Grande interprète de la musique Sevdah, elle devint très célèbre dans les années 1970. Surnommée "la Mère de l'âme gitane", elle refuse toutes les compromissions liées aux changements de mode. Sa célébrité reste intacte, mais le nombre de concerts diminue. Les "Kafanas", ces immenses restaurants-concerts où elle se produisait perdent leur popularité.
  Elle décide d'abandonner la carrière et part s'installer à Dusseldorf. gardant l'anonymat, elle devient serveuse, femme de ménage pour élever ses enfants.
En 2002, à la demande pressante de ses proches, elle accepte d'enregistrer un disque.
  De Mostar, Sarajevo, jusqu'en Serbie accourent ses anciens amis musiciens. Avec toujours cette voix sublime, mais encore plus riche, la "Mère de l'âme gitane" est de retour et nous promet un concert inoubliable.




A Thursday night in June 2000. It's very quiet in my parents' house in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only the voice of a female singer on a cheap tape given me by my father soars through the room. I stare at the front cover of the tape, a portrait of the singer. Not even the appalling quality of both the recording and the tape, nor the flat sound coming from the cheap speakers, can destroy the warmth of that voice, nor hide its emotion.
The technical imperfections connot prevent me being touched by the yearning and the pain this voice, with an almost masculine power, but still intensely female, transmits. Every time I hear this voice, I am on the verge of tears :
  'Dusko, Dusko,
  Since I am another man's woman
  My heart can't stand stil.
  I'm wandering every where just to find you,
  Just to see you, just to hear you.
  Dusko, Dusko'

The voice of Ljiljana Petrovic.

All this happened while I was busy preparing Saban Bajramovic's new album. 'A Gypsy legend', that's how enthusiastically his comeback was greeted. Still, he was not the only great singer to have disappeared during the previous dark decade in the Balkans. Now and then, I heard people talking about Ljiljana. The connoisseurs, especially those who had witnessed one of her gigs, mentioned her name with reverence, but not in the same way that talked about Saban.
Saban was 'The king of Gypsy music' - wild, romantic, rebellious. They talked about Ljiljana with respect, sweetness and tenderness. Pensively. They lapsed into silence, as though trying to hear an echo of her music that might be heard ringing out of the distance. Her powerful tenderness welled up not from her heart, but from the depth of her being, from her very soul. And that is where her voice flowed : to the soul of the listener. And that too was her title : 'The mother of Gypsy soul'.
The first time I heard her voice I knew, without the shadow of a doubt, it would be with her that I would make the first album for Snail Records, our new record label. But there were problems. Like many so others she had vanished, before, or may be during, or even after the war between the former republics of Yugoslavia. Where was she ? Still in the Balkans somewhere ? In America, living out the dream ? In Germany, that traditional Western refuge for many from the Balkans ? Somewhere else in Europe ? Saban gave me a phone number of someone who might know something. A month-long telephone marathon ensued - calls were made from Mostar to Sarajevo, from Berlin to Nis, from Belgrade to Zagreb - rickety telephone connections criss-crossing Europe. Then, a number in Düsseldorf came up.
I called. A heavy voice answered : 'Hello ?' 'Hi, this is Dragi Sestic speaking. Could I talk to Ljiljana Petrovic ?' 'It's me.' 'It can't be true', I thought, impossible, so I repeated the question. I got the same answer. 'It's me.' My quest had come to an end. I'd found her. Düsseldorf. Just a few hours' drive from Amsterdam, where I live.
But there was more separating us than just a few hours on the road. When I told her who I was, and why I was calling, she became reserved. When she heard the words 'singing again' she bacame rigid. The warmth disappeared from her voice, and defensiveness took its place. 'No, no, it is out of question, there is no point meeting up'. Only after endless urging, begging, flattering, repeated appeals to our common Bosnian background, and then begging again, did she agree to meet me and talk.

Two days later we were seated at her kitchen table and I heard again the voice that moved me so much, but this time directly, without technological mediation. And once again I fell under the spell of the melancholy warmth radiating from her voice, and indeed her whole personality, despite her defensive attitude. Seriously, her singing days were over, music didn't play a role in her life anymore. She had other things, more important things. She was a mother, with grandchildren. Life had more to offer than an artist's life. I listened to the sad timbre of this woman's voice. Her imposing posture, big, bulky, strong, exuded a soft, sad friendliness; her audiences must have had the same overwhelming impression I had at that moment. Her defensive attitude didn't fit her character, and so she gradually abandoned it during our conversation. We shared the same interests : I came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, loved Sevdah, the traditioal music of our country, she had lived there for years and had got to know and appreciate it. Gradually, personal stories came up, and the background to her defensiveness became clearer to me.
She was born in Belgrade in 1944 into a family of musicians - her father was an accordion virtuoso and her mother a Croatian singer, so music came as naturally to her as eating or breathing. Unfortunately, it was equally natural for an artistic marriage to fail. Her father left his wife as soon as his child was born. Her mother continued singing to support herself and her daughter. She performed in cafés, at parties, in restaurants, not only in Belgrade but throughout Yugoslavia. Eventually, when little Ljilja was twelve, the two ended up in Bijeljina, a small city in the north-west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they were to settle for a longer while, and where little Ljija took singing and piano lessons in the local music school. There, something that would have a decisive influence on her life happened. Her mother fell ill, but money had to be made. So little Ljiljana went to the restaurant where her mother used to sing. Ljilja used to sit there during every performance, under a table near the bandstand. The musicians' playing fascinated her, and they had grown fond of the child who sat there every evening and listened attentively. Her mother's singing had fascinated her most, and she adored her mother. She now knew every word of every song by heart, and every melody was engraved on her memory. 'My mother can't come tonight, she's sick', she said to the violin-player. 'Please help us, and let me sing instead'. Musicians looked at the little girl dressed in one of her mother's dresses, which, with a help of few pins and needles, almost fitted her. The men laughed and took pity on her. 'This won't work', they muttered, but they didn't want to disappoint her immediately.
'OK, Ljilja, you are really brave. Let's try something. What would you like to sing ?' When they heard the first sounds from the girl's mouth, they stopped laughing. Ljilja was allowed to sing and was a huge success. It was the start of her career.
It wasn't easy for her, though. A year of so after Ljilja's debut as a singer her mother left Bijeljina, leaving her behind. She never came back. Ljilja stayed. She sang in various cafés and restaurants in and aroundBijeljina, for ever-changing crowds. She was forced to sing every genre her fickle audiences required : gypsy romances, jazz, traditional Balkan music, pop, Russian ballads, classics, country and rock'n'roll, but also Sevdah. She also continued her music-lessons and finished school.
When she was fourteen she became pregnant.

She refused to shed more light on these years, but from what I understand, she moved to Belgrade and continued the same lifestyle. But she wasn't anonymous any longer. The kafanas where she performed - big café-restaurants where music is played, so big they can accommodate hundreds of guests - got bigger and more famous, and in 1969, she recorded her first single, a Gypsy romance, in her very own style.
She departed from the traditional Balkan style, and created her own sound, totally new and authentic. A sound unmistakeably hers, instantly recognisable, not at least because of her dark and powerful, yet mysterious and subtle voice.

During the Seventies, her star was on the rise. By the end of the decade the unique elements of her music had made her a ccult star, and she was idolised by Yugoslav intellectuals and artists. It was at this time that people started referring to her as 'the mother of Gypsy soul'. Radio and TV fought over her, but she never showed any particular interest in those media. She was too conscious of their dangers. All things considered, there was never much money to be made anyway, but corruption in the media made it possible to copy and distribute her music illegally, a situation in which everyone involved got part of the money, except for her. The majority of her earnings came from the world of kafanas and feats, where any vagueness was avoided, and the artist's pay was hard cash rather than a promise of fame. That's also the reason why she never paid too much attention to making records. In a musical world where people laughed when notions like copyright were mentioned, making records just meant unpaid work and unpaid time, the earnings going to those who alone knew how to navigate the misty waters of copyright law. This is probably the reason why she has only a few albums to her name. But there are archive recordings to be found in the vaults of the national radio stations. There was a movie made about her too, called "Vagabond", with a beautiful soundtrack. Neither brought her any money.

At the end of the seventies, when Ljiljana was at the zenith of her fame, proving her claim to the title of 'mother of Gypsy soul' and keeping herself far from the decaying world of socialist commercialism, social changes were happening. Yugoslav society was fascinated by the technical and commercial blessings of the West, to which the country was ever more open.
The music scene felt its influence too. Technical novelties like synthesizers started to show up and were soon thought of as indispensable to every genre of music. PA's got bigger, and events where traditional Balkan music was performed by artists like Ljiljana were replaced by a new disco culture with its matching music, so-called 'turbofolk' - a narrow-minded combination of elements of traditional folk music and thumping synthesizer rhythms which left its soulless lyrics, luckily, almost inaudible.

Ljiljana refused to make concessions to the new rage or to bow to the cheap success of vulgar mass entertainment. Her name remained known, but the gigs were fewer, the kafanas more often empty than full when she sang. But there were also other things going on. She was a sensible and intelligent woman, and her something that was inaudible to most. Behind the deafening noise of the haunting electronic rhythms and thumping disco dances, behind the false blinding dazzle imported from the West, there were voices whispering of doom, evil, catastrophe - voices that could be heard only by those who could and would listen. Ljiljana was one of those. She and her two children - she had been divorced twice by that time - took the train to Germany, to Düsseldorf. There was no singing anymore, no music, no fame. Her life as a singer was over, however painful it must have been for her to say goodbye to it. The only thing that mattered now were the children she had to take care of. And she did it by working as a cleaning lady, a packer in a factory, a waitress, a kitchen help. She wasn't bitter, though. She was a mother, she worried and smiled. She married again and became Mrs. Buttler.

History proved she was right : two years later Yugoslavia was torn apart in a hurricane of annihilating violence.

I now understood her unwillingness to reopen a closed book. What was I supposed to do - leave ? Stop pushing her ? No. My determination increased. I had to persuade her to make a new album. Had she really quit singing ? No, she sang sometimes, maybe twice a year, at a family party. Alone, without accompaniment ? Yeah, why ? You'd like to hear my voice ? But you can hear it now, can't you ? No, that's not what I meant ... I refused to let go. After few more hours of persuasion, flattering, talking about Sevdah and the great love she had for music, and then some more persuasion - 'It would be good for you, Ljiljana, you're the best, help me, we need you' - I succeeded. She picked up the phone and the same evening a few amateur musicians turned up, and Ljiljana sang ! It was the same voice as the one on that crackling tape in that silent room in Mostar, but it was also different. The language of the soul was fuller, more mature, more genuine, clearer.

A week later she phoned me and confirmed that she was ready to work on the album which was to be 'The mother of Gypsy soul'. I couldn't gave been happier. Ljiljana Petrovic, now Buttler, was back ! In Mostar, Sarajevo, even in Serbia the rumour was spreading, and all the musical big-shots were enthusiastic. Guys like Mustafa Santic, Miso Petrovic, Nedjo Kovacevic, Kosta Latinovic (members of Mostar Sevdah Reunion) and the Serb trumpet player Boban Markovic signed up to join the project.
A month later I gave Ljiljana a call. I talked to her just a few days before. No, Ljiljana was not there. She'd gone to Serbia. Where ? I wouldn't know, unfortunately, sais the voice at the other end of the line.

She stayed away for nine months, untraceable. Only after those nine months, a period of desperate searching and telephone calls, was I able to contact her again. Yes, of course, everything was to go on as planned, sure she'd come to Mostar to record. Did I have any doubts ? What about ? Why ? She wasn't Saban, after all, was she ? She was referring to Saban's habit of showing up for the gigs according to his own private sense of time, which deviated strongly from the commonly accepted one. She had needed nine months to get used to the fact that she would be on stage again.
We started recording her album in the Pavarotti Centre studios in Mostar on 2 April 2002. Some might have interpreted her disappearance, her initial unwillingness, her refusals as the behaviour of a diva, as arrogance, but nothing could be further from the truth. It was doubt, insecurity, modesty. One of her characteristics is an exemplary modesty, as we were to learn. Those weeks when we were busy recording were unforgettable, not just for me, but for everyone involved. Ljiljana's presence made the usual ego clashes vanish, for once and for all. Not one of us needed self-glorification, the pernicious disease of many an artist, when we saw how she took care of us like a mother, despite the fact that our ages ranged from thirty to sixty.
Her voice was in perfect tune with her personality. The recording was done. With Ljiljana, we were listening to one of our tapes. 'Ashun daje mori', with her slow, lamenting, stirring voice, rang through the room, - a track she wrote herself and which, thanks to the contribution of all the musicians involved, was to become one of the best songs on the album. She began to weep softly 'Why, Ljilja, what's happened ?'
'I'm so grateful to you guys for doing this. I'm so happy to have been a part of this'.
Not a diva, greater.

Dragi Sestic

                        (translation by Djordje Mat.)





...Ljiljana Buttler is one of the great re-discovered voices of Eastern Europe. Deep, dark and distinctive. Her recording with the Mostar Sevdah Reunion band, "The Mother of Gypsy Soul (Snail Records) is one of my CDs of the year and impresses everyone I've played in to .(Simon Broughton, Songlines, UK, September/October 2002).

...Ljiljana Buttler's debut CD is delicious : Ljiljana's deep, almost masculine, voice picks out words and tosses them into the air with effortless grace. And the instrumental backing by Mostar Sevdah Reunion and legendary trumpet virtuoso Boban Markovic is inspired : the musicians spoon out the notes with a tangible, almost erotic, delicacy while Ljiljana sails above them, her voice caressing the listener. (Garth Carthwright, FRoots Magazine, UK January/February 2003).

Songlines recommends, ... Something very special indeed. (Kim Burton, Songlines, UK, September/October 2002)

Gypsy Cosmic blues, 5***** ... Mother of Gypsy soul is simply one more perfect album with signature of Mostar Sevdah Reunion and the best CD released by Ljiljana. (Zlztko Gall, Slobodna Dalmacija, Croatia, May 2003)

About MSR

The idea of forming "Mostar Sevdah Reunion" started in the summer of 1993, during the worst war destruction of Mostar.
Dragi Sestic was working as a music editor at the local "war radio station" in Mostar. One evening he visited one of many candlelit concerts, which were performed for a small audience trying just for a moment to forget the war. For the first time in his life he saw and heard Ilijaz Delic, who had spent most of his career and life in Belgrade performing in the most famous bars and restaurants of the city. Amazed by Delic's interpretation of sevdalinkas (traditional Bosnian songs), Sestic made contact with him and went back to the radio station to share his impression with friend, journalist Faruk Kajtaz. A few days later, Delic came to the radio station to perform some songs for the program (in those days his accordion player was Elmedin Balalic). After that concert Sestic and Kajtaz, impressed by Ilijaz's singing, had a pretty crazy idea for those days to make a big world star of Ilijaz.



.......................................................................................................................................

The idea of forming "Mostar Sevdah Reunion" started in the summer of 1993, during the worst war destruction of Mostar.
Dragi Sestic was working as a music editor at the local "war radio station" in Mostar. One evening he visited one of many candlelit concerts, which were performed for a small audience trying just for a moment to forget the war. For the first time in his life he saw and heard Ilijaz Delic, who had spent most of his career and life in Belgrade performing in the most famous bars and restaurants of the city. Amazed by Delic's interpretation of sevdalinkas (traditional Bosnian songs), Sestic made contact with him and went back to the radio station to share his impression with friend, journalist Faruk Kajtaz. A few days later, Delic came to the radio station to perform some songs for the program (in those days his accordion player was Elmedin Balalic). After that concert Sestic and Kajtaz, impressed by Ilijaz's singing, had a pretty crazy idea for those days to make a big world star of Ilijaz.
In October 1993, Sestic recorded one audiotape with Tlijaz "Biseri Sevdaha" (The Pearls of Sevdah), which was released in limited edition because of war circumstances.One month later, in November 1993, Mustafa Santic, a great friend of Ilijaz, came to the radio station. There he met Sestic and Kajtaz. Mustafa was already known as a big virtuoso on the accordion and the clarinet. After their performance of sevdah, the fundamental basis of the future band was clear - the fantastic vocal of Ilijaz Delic and the virtuosity of Mustafa Santic.
After the end of the war in Mostar, Sestic went to the Netherlands. Slowly, the idea of a band of world-class quality performing traditional Bosnian music was frozen.
Everybody was busy with his own life, career, .... A few years later, in September 1998, Sestic returned to Mostar for a holiday, bringing some of the recent CDs of the world music to his friend Kajtaz. After listening to those CDs, they concluded that it was time to renew the idea of starting a band with the name "Mostar Sevdah Reunion".
They met very supportive people in the "Music Center Pavarotti°", who had a great sense for sevdah music - David Wilson, the director of the center and one of the establishers of the "War Child" organization and Eugene Skeef, great percussionist and in those days a musical therapist and also a man who gave strong support and spiritual power to the whale idea. Senad Trnovac, excellent rock-jazz drummer from Mostar, joined the band and they made the first demo tracks. Because of the connections of the Music Center Pavarotti with world music stars, somehow those demo tracks ended up in the hands of the famous producer Brian Eno, one of the donators and coordinators of the whole project in Mostar connected with "War Child". Sometime at the end of October 1998, Eno came to Mostar to visit the music center and he had a meeting with Sestic and Kajtaz.
After a few hours of "inspiring" conversation with Eno, Sestic and Kajtaz knew that they were on the right musical track. Eno left them with the promise that he would do as much as possible to help release the CD. After a few months of waiting, Sestic and Kajtaz decided to finish all of the material for the CD. They went back to the studio in January 1999, but with four more musicians: Amir Karahasanovic -guitar, Miralem Basic & Adnan Zimic -bassprim, and Kosta Latinovic -berde bass.
With completed material, Sestic went back to the Netherlands to search for the publisher and record company. After making many contacts, he chose Dutch record label "World Connection", which is supporting the new recording budget. Sestic then invited Miso Petrovic and Sandi Durakovic, a virtuoso guitar duo from Mostar that was living in the Netherlands, and Branko Petkovic, a famous violin player from Sarajevo to join the band. "World Connection" sent Esma Redzepova - "The Queen of the Gypsies"- as a special guest to perform two songs on the CD.
The final material was recorded in July 1994 in the studio of "Music Center Pavarotti°" in Mostar, under the direction of Dragi Sestic and Faruk Kajtaz. The CD was released in October 1999. The dream of a summer war night became a reality'.

To millions of people in the world, Bosnia and Herzegovina is known only for horrible news on violence, ethnical cleansing and war. The recent war has completely overshadowed the very rich and unique cultural tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the cultural heritage of this country, a special place belongs to the traditional Bosnian music form "Sevdah". Although it is reliably known that the Sevdah originated after the Turks came to medieval Bosnia, nobody has been able to determine exactly when this was. The word Sevdah itself is open to several interpretations. The most accurate explanation is that is an Arabic word "Sevdah", which means love, desire or ecstasy. In an attempt to establish the meaning of the word Sevdah, people went back to the old age when the Arabic word "Sevdah°" was used by physicians to describe black gall, a substance which circulates through human organism that control feelings and emotions.
All this clearly points to the fact that the Sevdah, ever since its discovery until today was a musical expression based on emotion and a particular emotional state of musicians and singers. Sevdah performers could not have been ordinary musicians and singers therefore, as they were requested to feel the music they performed, in order to get listeners genuinely acquainted with the message each song was meant to convey. When the Sevdah was first introduced, this music was performed by a singer with a popular and simple instrument (saz) only, so that the interpretation was always loose with and open to number of improvisations. This loose and improvised style remains an important characteristic in later forms of the Sevdah when other instruments like accordion, violin or guitar started to be used. In the beginning, the Sevdah was restricted to a small audience, when it was performed in the houses of wealthy Muslim families. Many songs focusing on this theme are still testimony to this. Over time, the Sevdah moved on from these privileged households to become a popular musical expression equally liked by all layers of society, from wealthy landowners (beg andaga) to ordinary citizens (raja). Although it has evolved over time, even in this age of technological advancement and hectic lifestyles the Sevdah remains a musical expression full of emotion, calling for old times when people lived easier and loved more.
.......................................................................................................................................Faruk Kajtaz