No music Nina Strugar he can't imagine his life.
She has been singing for years, and she subordinated her activities on the music scene to folk music. She participated in the only original music festival organized by the Association of Pop Artists of Montenegro until 2011, and after a break she decided to sing in a foreign language as well.
Many were surprised that her first and for now only album is in Turkish, and Nina showed how much we have a similar cultural heritage. The idea for this project was born thanks to Nina's appearance on the show "Centuries that have passed" on the Turkish state television TRT MUZIK, in which she talks about the connection between the Balkans and Turkey. Turkish songs from the Balkans that are known to our people were found on that project, because the Ottoman Empire left a rich cultural legacy in the Balkans.
This opened many doors for her, and one of the possibilities was to do her first solo concert. He was in the big hall of KIC Budo Tomović, Nina managed to break the ice and perform in front of her fellow citizens, and now, after almost five years, she is returning to that place on May 29. This time the concert is called "We will sing what our heart knows", and the program will include, as she revealed, songs from the Balkans.
"This is my third solo concert at KIC Budo Tomović. I took a little break, because in the meantime I became a mother", reveals the reasons why she has not been so active in music in recent years, and told how difficult it was for her to choose the songs to perform.
"I have to admit that it was not easy to choose songs that are close to the audience, and at the same time add some forgotten but beautiful compositions, but I managed to choose a song from each part", was all she wanted to reveal about what the audience expects next Monday.
Usually, when the audience comes to the concerts of performers who cherish traditional music, they also like to sing along. However, someone is always denied the song they wanted to hear. Nina tries to please the audience with her repertoire, as well as herself.
"I love when the audience is singing and when I convey emotion to them. The greatest success of an artist is precisely to convey an emotion. I choose songs that I like and that are in line with my sensibility, and the audience recognizes that. Even some lesser-known songs are better accepted by the audience if you have brought all the emotion into the interpretation, than those that are generally known", explains the artist in an interview with the Magazine.
And this time they will have guests, and in addition to Nina, her colleagues will also sing that evening Tatjana Lazičić Popović, Petar Bulatović i Renata Perazic.
And while colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina are researching, and some long-forgotten songs can be heard in their repertoire, Montenegrin performers mostly "play it safe" and sing songs that the audience knows and loves well. When asked if because there were no official records, they were passed down from generation to generation to new generations, making it harder to find them, Nina answers:
"I really like what my colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina do, and my further musical work will go in that direction, that's how I plan. This implies a serious research work, new arrangements, time, money. That's precisely why hardly anyone in our country wants to devote himself to it. Especially people for whom music is their primary occupation and source of livelihood. It is a luxury for many".
Nina belongs to the younger generation of singers who have decided to build a career by singing original songs, as well as songs based on the original ones, and she reflects on how aware we are of the musical wealth we have and why younger people rarely choose this genre.
"My goal is to contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage of Montenegro and the Balkans through my work in the field of music. However, we are witnessing that young people are heavily influenced by instant culture and popular culture. The culture is quite degraded and it is difficult for a young man to recognize everything that is valuable, if someone does not guide him or if he does not have a feeling in himself. I think that cultural institutions should also help young people who are interested in researching and creating musical heritage," she advises.
You are the only one from Montenegro to record an album of Turkish folk songs, and the audience who comes to her concert will hear some of them, she promises.
"From Montenegro and the region, apart from Divanhana from Bosnia and Herzegovina who had a similar project, I was the only one who recorded only a few songs in Turkish. The album was recorded in cooperation with the Turkish Cultural Center and the songs in question are from the Balkans because they have a centuries-old legacy here. Of course, the concert will be interpreted in Turkish as well as in Greek", Nina reveals what the audience can expect.
Currently, she is dedicated to organizing concerts, but soon the audience will have the opportunity to hear something new from her.
"After the summer, I'm planning a new album that will include covers of our songs from the Balkans. I will try to research and revive some forgotten compositions, but also those that everyone knows and present them in a new guise", reveals Nina's plans, but as many songs have already been published in various arrangements, about what new her covers will bring, says:
"As I already said, the biggest goal will be to save some songs from oblivion and somehow make the audience fall in love with them again. Such projects and reviving forgotten tracks are the best way to preserve cultural heritage".
Sevdah is thanks to some performers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, among whom are Damir Imamovic, Amira Medunjanin, Bozo Vrećo, has long been classified in the World music genre. This opened the door for them, so almost every new album of theirs has been covered all over the world, they are published by international publishing houses, and they have concerts in various parts of the world. There are performers in our country who cherish the musical legacy, but unfortunately they are not at that level. When asked if it's a lack of ambition or if it's simply necessary to create space through festivals, but also independent concerts, album recording, Nina thinks:
"Well, lack of ambition, but time and money are needed for all that. But there is probably also a fear of how the audience will accept it all. But what we forget is that the audience always recognizes the emotion. I will try, but I also want to go in that direction and for a period of time be at the same level as them", reveals Nina about her plans.
But all of them at one point decide to record original songs made in the spirit of the originals, and she does not hide that she is thinking about continuing to build a career in that way.
"If I decided to record original music, then I would go for the option that the new songs would be in a pop-ethnic direction. I think the audience would like it," concludes Nina.
Bonus video:
