One of the best interpreters of modern sevdah, Amira Medunjanin, will release a new album by the end of the week. The project "For Him and Her" is a new world music studio album, and it will be released on Friday, July 12 on all streaming services, and it will be available for physical sale throughout the region ten days later.
With this album, Billi Holliday from Bosnia and Herzegovina paid tribute to the singers Tomi Zdravković and Silvana Armenulić, and it contains 12 of their songs interpreted by Amira Medunjanin.
"It is no coincidence that this record is dedicated to Tom and Silvana. There is something in their paths and lives, friendship and cooperation that gives that music and shared destiny the dimension of a real fairy tale. If he put on the newly composed music the suit of a loser's chanson, she, with her inspiration and skill, made this creation woven of sadness and truth official as a female version of the tavern prayer. Their voices in those songs became the heartbeat of many hearts over time. /…/ Those careers rhyme with legend. A fairy tale scattered to the limits of our language, sensibility and curse. Defeated in the end, but not forgotten", writes Petar Peca Popović in the edition's booklet, paying homage to Tom's and Silvana's careers and songs with his text, just as Amira Medunjanin does with his voice.
After the release of the album on CD, in mid-July, a richly equipped double vinyl will be on sale. The songs that will be part of the project "For Him and Her" were recorded in Boston, Belgrade, Mostar, New York, Thessaloniki, Paris and London. The album was supposed to be released at the end of April, but due to the current corona virus pandemic, it was postponed to mid-June. Amira does not hide that the album she recorded is "the realization of a dream as long as her career".
"From the moment I started singing, my favorite songs were always songs by Silvana Armenulić and Toma Zdravković. "Such souls, such warmth and such voices inspired one Bosnian woman to leave her 'safe biography' and follow the path they trod and left too soon," said Medunjanin.
Amira is even called the queen of sevdah, and she recently won the first Porin in her career for her interpretation of the track "Što te nema", which she performed in the Pula Arena in August 2018.
So far, Amira has released four studio albums, and only on the last one did she try herself as an author.
Bonus video:
