The current album of the leading Bosnian musician and composer Damir Imamović "Singer of Tales" brought him numerous accolades, the critics were delighted with it, and the current pandemic prevented his concert from being promoted. The quarantine days are behind us, and since it's never too late for a good song, Imamović will finally present the tracks that were included in the aforementioned project in Podgorica, on Friday, March 17, from 20 p.m. in the large hall of KIC Budo Tomović.
Imamović already had the opportunity to perform in front of the Podgorica audience, and every time his concert would be an opportunity to hear some forgotten traditional songs. A Slovenian double bass player will also perform with Damir (voice, tambour). Žige Golob and a well-known Turkish artist, a soloist on the traditional Turkish instrument kemenche, Derje Turkan. Turkan was a guest of Imamović on the current album "Singer of Tales".
Damir is already announcing a new project in the spring, although the concert promotion of the current one is still going on, and in an interview with "Vijesti" he reveals that he is satisfied with the audience's reception:
"I am very satisfied with the success of the last album. However, I received an invitation from the famous American record label “Smithsonian Folkways” to release an album for them and I am looking forward to its release soon. Of course, I still play the repertoire from the "Singer of Tales" album. "For sure, I will play it in parallel for a while in a trio with Derya Turkan and Žig Golob," said Imamović.
Apart from the songs from the current album, Damir will also play some other songs that evening, but the list of tracks that he will play is not yet final, considering that there are a lot of them.
"Honestly, every concert is different, so I don't know what we will play. I've gotten a little older too, so I have a lot of songs in my repertoire," he joked.
However, this concert will not only be different in terms of repertoire. Namely, the aforementioned musicians who will accompany Damir that evening will influence the sound to be different. Given that they didn't grow up with sevdah music, Damir reveals how difficult it is to find someone among international musicians who not only plays well and can deliver a composition, but also shows that he understands and enjoys sevdah with his interpretation:
"I choose collaborations based on what the people I work with can contribute to my vision of sevdah and my original compositions. In the case of Derje Turkan, for example, I met him as a teacher of Ottoman music and was a big fan of his even before we started playing together. Let's say, what I learned from him inspired me to write some compositions, including 'If this were the end'", said Imamović, who is often described by critics as "the king of sevdah music" and "a true revolutionary of this genre". When asked whether such epithets are more pleasing or binding, he answers:
"To be honest, I don't know. Music promotion stuff is often not up to me. Journalists write what they think they should, and sometimes it's wonderful, and sometimes it fits into all the prejudices that people have about the music of Bosnia and the Balkans. I never wanted to be the king of something. Those 'titles' are used to attract the audience to the concerts so I don't complain too much. I love Sevdah, and I equally want to continue its noble tradition and change it".
Imamović has sevdah in his genes. Namely, his grandfather, the famous Sevdalinka singer, was the first to deal with this genre Zaim Imamović, and then his father Nejad. However, Damir was the first to start promoting this musical direction around the world. It was a pioneering undertaking at the beginning of this century. Today there are already a lot of performers who promote this genre and are also successful in the world they are among Amira Medunjanin, God's Sack, Divanhana, Maja Milinković. Today, it is much easier for everyone who decides to practice sevdah, because it was Imamović who paved the way for them.
"I was aware from the beginning that what I was doing required time. It turns out I was right. It's easy to continue what people have done before you and there was a lot of pressure on me in the beginning to imitate Zaim or Nejad. However, I patiently built my way and it seems to me that it is slowly paying off", the musician proudly points out.
And to his and the audience's satisfaction, true lovers of sevdah will soon have the opportunity to enjoy new songs. He announced that they will bring Damir's contemporary view of Bosnian traditional music, and what that actually means, he reveals:
"Well, I mean above all the new songs that I write, but also the old songs in a new context", he explained.
Imamović will release a new album as part of a genre collaboration with the Bosnian-American author Alexander Hemon. And while Hemon's book "The World And All That It Holds" will be published by MCD/Farrar, Stras and Giroux, Imamović's album will be released under The Smithsonian Folkways label. The last thing published by this music publishing house, which was related to Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the album of archival recordings "Bosnia: Echos from an endangered world" back in 1994, which was prepared by Ted Levine i Ankica Petrović.
However, the idea is that these two projects can function independently, but have a link. However, it is not easy to write songs in which you have to stick to a certain form and theme, but Imamović managed to answer this challenge, and the task he was given did not affect his creativity.
"Working with Saša was a great pleasure. I have known his writing for a long time and it was an honor when he invited me to work together. I had complete freedom to do what I wanted and make it my album. "Truth, I was guided by the poems he mentions in the book and wrote some new ones that are thematically related to the book," concludes Imamović.
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