Damir Imamović, Singer of Tales Trio & Boris Kovač and the New Ritual Ensemble

Two concerts of the world music genre, in which the biggest regional names of this scene will perform, will be held in the Novi Sad Synagogue, on Thursday, 10 November at 8 p.m. The ‘Singer of Tales’ trio consisting of Damir Imamović, Darija Tirkan and Žiga Golob will perform, followed by Boris Kovač with the New Ritual Ensemble.

• Damir Imamović: ‘Singer of Tales’ (BiH, TUR, SVN)

Damir Imamović (Sarajevo, 1978) is one of the most important representatives of today’s Sevdah music in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of seven studio albums, some of which he released for prestigious world music record labels such as Glitterbeat Records (Dvojka, 2016) and Wrasse Records (Singer of Tales, 2020). Growing up in a family of Sevdalinka bards, Damir got to know the world of traditional music at an early age. He recorded his first album in 2006, which was followed by a series of performances in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the region of the former Yugoslavia. Later, he would tour parts of Europe, China, the USA, Mexico, Japan and India. He collaborated with numerous eminent musicians, and he also worked with producers such as Chris Eckman (on the Dvojka album), Joe Boyd and Andrea Goertler (on Singer of Tales). Damir is the winner of several national and international awards and honours. Among other things, he was declared the best European artist in the field of world music (Songlines Magazine, 2021), and his album ‘Singer of Tales’ received a prestigious award from the German Association of Music Critics (2020).

In one of Damir Imamović’s current projects, ‘Singer of Tales’, a trio is participating, which, in addition to Damir, also includes the Istanbul master of Turkish classical music, Derya Türkan, and the outstanding Slovenian double bassist Žiga Golob. Türkan plays a classical Ottoman instrument, the three-stringed lyre called kemenche. He is known for his collaborations with exquisite artists. Golob is one of the most sought-after double bassists in the field of jazz and improvised music. He regularly collaborates with Tamara Obrovac, Matija Dedić, and others.

The concert in Novi Sad is the debut of the ‘Singer of Tales’ trio and the presentation of the album by the same name in Serbia.

• Boris Kovač: New Ritual Ensemble (SRB)

This concert programme brings a number of primarily original compositions by Boris Kovač: works of chamber music and world-jazz-dance numbers written for film and theatre, as well as a ballad by Lav Kovač, arranged for an ensemble that had its debut performance at the Opening Ceremony of the in Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture programme, at the Serbian National Theatre, on 13 January 2022, in front of dignitaries from the European Union and Serbia. The members of the ensemble are decades-long collaborators of Boris Kovač, whose performing creativity is deeply woven into his authorial expression. Boris Kovač is a composer, instrumentalist and multimedia artist. He writes music for chamber ensembles, which he usually rehearses with and leads himself. Many of his projects were made for theatre and film. His albums landed on the lists of the best albums chosen by the World Music Charts Europe panel five times, and the magazine Songlines included The Last Balkan Tango among the 50 most important albums of all time. He has been awarded several times for his work. The composition programme of Boris Kovač’s New Ritual Ensemble at the Pocket Globe festival will be mainly based on, relatively speaking, the lighter tones of this author. Some of his most popular compositions will also be performed. Given that the performance of such a sextet is not easily achievable nowadays, the concert at the Pocket Globe represents a unique opportunity for the audience to witness the music of true masters of chamber music, who perform the rich and varied oeuvre of Boris Kovač with incomparable sensitivity. In addition to Boris (soprano and alto saxophone, clarinet, melodion, vocals), the band consists of Aleksandra Krčmar (violin), Lazar Novkov (accordion), Slobodanka Stević (piano, sampler), Siniša Mazalica (double bass) and Lav Kovač (drums, sampler). Dima Jakovljević is in charge of sound design.

The concert will be held as part of the first World Music Festival Pocket Globe, which brings six extraordinary concerts at the University of Novi Sad (Novi Sad Synagogue / the Youth Theatre), from 10 to 12 November. As part of the concert programme, artists from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Morocco, France, Türkiye, Cyprus and Iran will perform.

Photo: Promo