ZAGREB, January 13, 2019 - Macedonia's gypsy brass band Kočani Orkestar will perform as special guests in Zagreb's Boogaloo Club on January 18, organiser Twilight Promotion announced earlier this week.

Kočani Orkestar are among the funkiest exponents of the Balkan brass band style which is found across ex-Yugoslavia and is a direct descendent of the music once played by Turkish army bands.

They come from the town of Kočani, in Macedonia. Their music is based on Gypsy tunes from various parts of the Balkans and on Turkish rhythms, with a sprinkle of Latin flavour.

Their song "Siki, siki baba" is featured on the soundtrack for the movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan although it has no connection to the music of Kazakhstan. Together with the Romani singer Esma Redžepova, Naat Veliov has filed a lawsuit for the producers of the movie for an unauthorised use of the song.

The band recorded five albums "A Gypsy Brass Band", "L'orient est rouge", "Gypsy Mambo", "Alone At My Wedding" and "The Ravished Bride", and the sixth studio album is underway.

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ZAGREB, January 11, 2019 - The American rock band Garbage, fronted by Shirley Manson, will perform at the INmusic festival to be held in Zagreb on June 24-26. This is one of only two of their concerts in this part of Europe announced so far.

The band will be joining The Cure, Foals, LP, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls and Peter, Bjorn and John at Croatia’s biggest rock festival – INmusic.

Garbage is a project founded by producers Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, who started to work together in 1993, while Shirley Manson joined them in 1994 after finishing a tour with her former band. Butch Vig already worked with the world’s biggest bands, being best known as the producer of Nirvana's masterpiece album Nevermind, as well as producing critically acclaimed albums for Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins.

In 2012, Vig was shortlisted by NME magazine as one of the top 10 best producers in the world. In 1995, Garbage started releasing singles from their first album, and the songs "Stupid Girl" and "Only Happy When It Rains" won over charts worldwide and secured the band three Grammy nominations.

Their second album, "Version 2.0", reclaimed their position on the charts, earning the band two Grammy nominations.

Garbage also worked on the soundtrack for the 19th James Bond movie and released the theme song "The World Is Not Enough," which achieved great worldwide success and was one of the best-selling songs of 1999.

Their third album, "Beautiful Garbage", was released in 2001 and after the release of the album "Bleed Like Me" in 2005, the band announced they were going their separate ways for a while. They briefly reunited in 2007 when they recorded several new songs for the retrospective album "Absolute Garbage".

They officially reunited in 2011 and released the "Not Your Kind of People" album a year later, while "Strange Little Birds" followed in 2016.

Garbage announced that they will be releasing their seventh studio album this year, which fans will have the opportunity to hear live at Zagreb’s Lake Jarun at the 14th edition of the INmusic festival.

More news on the festivals in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.

On January 5, 2019, the Zagreb Soloists marked the 65th anniversary of their first concert. The legendary chamber music ensemble, which in the 1980s had the best-selling classical music album in the world, will devote this whole year to the citizens and streets of Zagreb and other parts of Croatia, reports Večernji List on January 8, 2019.

“Just as the name suggests, we belong to Zagreb, not just to its lavish concert halls, and those in Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, London, New York, Sydney..., to kings, diplomats, elites that have been following us for years. Although we are proud to receive many acknowledgments and recognition on a worldwide scale, on the other hand, that gives the impression that the music is something distant and expensive. On the contrary, it is here, available to everybody, and we want to show that to our fellow citizens,” said Krunoslav Marić, the chairman of the ensemble’s management council.

The Zagreb Soloists will soon surprise the citizens at some of the famous locations in Zagreb, such as the Dolac farmers’ market and the Cibona basketball hall since the team was also at its best in the 1980s. They will perform at locations where today’s citizens of Zagreb spend a lot of their time, such as at shopping malls. It is also possible you will hear them perform a part of a string concert in your local cafe.

Each of the activities and locations, depending on the weather conditions, will be announced on time by the Zagreb Soloists, so that the citizens can come and listen to some of the best classical music of all genres. The first "street” performance will take place at Dolac on Saturday morning. The musicians are especially looking forward to the concert of “The Carnival of the Animals”, but the location itself will for now remain a secret.

According to the official website, “the Zagreb Soloists ensemble was founded in 1953 as a Radio Zagreb ensemble under the artistic leadership of the renowned cellist Antonio Janigro. They gained a reputation as one of the world’s most outstanding chamber orchestras. The Zagreb Soloists have given over 4,000 concerts on all continents and in many prestigious venues such as the Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Royal Festival Hall (London), Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Tchaikowski Hall (Moscow), Santa Cecilia (Rome), Carnegie Hall (New York), Opera House (Sydney), Victoria Hall (Geneva), Teatro Real (Madrid), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), etc.

They have regularly performed at the major music festivals such as those in Salzburg, Prague, Edinburgh, Berlin, Bergen, Barcelona, Istanbul, Prades Ossiach, Dubrovnik and elsewhere, playing with numerous distinguished soloists, for example – Henryk Szeryng, Alfred Brendel, Christian Ferras, Pierre Fournier, Leonard Rose, James Galway, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Aldo Ciccolini, Katia Ricciarelli, Lily Laskin, Zuzana Růžičková, Mario Brunello, Isabelle Moretti, Guy Touvron and many others.

Zagreb Soloists’ performing repertoire entails baroque, classicist, romantic and contemporary music, with particular attention given to Croatian composers – both of those who represent the musical heritage and those of the younger generation.”

More news about the music in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.

Translated from Večernji List.

The proud owner of numerous hits, four Grammy awards and more than 60 million albums sold, Michael Buble will perform on September 16, 2019, at the Arena Zagreb, reports Večernji List on November 16, 2018.

The Zagreb concert is part of a major world tour promoting his latest studio album, which will begin in Florida on February 13. This is the fourth major world tour in Michael Buble's career, and the first part includes 27 American cities, including concerts at the legendary Madison Square Garden in New York and the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.

The European tour starts on May 20 in Birmingham. In addition to numerous British cities and the concert in Zagreb, the singer will visit and cheer up his fans in Ireland, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium and the Netherlands.

“I am doing what I was created for. I am returning to a world which needs love, romance and laughter more than ever, and I am channelling this through my new songs. This is the best album I have made so far,” said Buble. The love is proof of the power of music and its healing power. “It is true that I needed to make this album and that it had a very positive effect on me. These songs and this genre are my essence. They perfectly fit me and seem so natural.”

The latest album "Love" is a cross-section of love classics in new arrangements, including My Funny Valentine in Michael's interpretation, and La Vie En Rose, which he sang in a duet with Cecile McLorin Salvant. Together with Loren Allred, he breathed a new life into Kris Kristofferson's hit Help Me Make It Through The Night. The emotional centre of the album is his song Forever Love, which tells a story about his favourite role as a father and the vulnerability and strength that comes from unconditional love.

Michael Buble will remember this day well because he is about to receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The tickets for the Zagreb concert will be available starting from November 23, through the Eventim system and their sales venues.

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Keeping The Blues Alive is a prestigious blues award which is presented every year in Memphis by the Blues Foundation to those whose actions significantly promote the blues music in the world. In the 37 years since the establishment of the award, there have been just a few European blues groups which have had the honour to receive it. Now, one of them is the Croatian group called Croatian Blues Forces, an association which represents Croatia in the blues music world, reports Večernji List on November 14, 2018.

The association is celebrating its tenth anniversary, as well as ten years of sending its representatives to Memphis, so the award could not have come at a better time.

Boris Hrepić is a well-known Croatian musician, formerly of the Daleka Obala band. He switched to the blues music a while back and has been the president of the Croatian Blues Forces for the last six years. He is highly impressed with the award.

“When I received the news about the award, I had to sit down immediately because my knees started buckling. This is a major honour for our association and for Croatia to receive this award, especially since I know that some much larger and stronger associations have been applying for years for this award, while we received it in our first attempt. But this shows that we are striving to promote the blues music on several levels, from organizing the Croatian Blues Challenge, concerts, new festivals, blues discography, radio broadcasts and, in the end and perhaps most importantly, working with children and the youth. For example, we will soon send the Youth Blues Band to the International Blues Challenge for the fourth time, and we will be the first European country to manage to do that. We will be presented with the Keeping The Blues Alive award, which we dedicate to our late founder Dražen Buhin, at a gala event on January 25,” said Hrepić.

For more on music in Croatia, click here.

Translated from Večernji List.

ZAGREB, October 8, 2018 - The 28th edition of Jazz.hr/Autumn Festival will take place on 17-21 October in the Kontesa Jazz club in Zagreb while presenting a series of prominent jazz musicians and bands.

ZAGREB, September 22, 2018 - The Croatian Baroque Ensemble, soloists of Japan's Orchestra Libera Classica, the La Fontaverde ensemble, and the Varaždin-based Chorus Angelus choir, on Friday evening gave a concert under the baton of Japanese musician Hidemi Suzuki at the Varaždin Cathedral, marking the beginning of the 48th edition of the Varaždin Baroque Evenings classical music event.

The newly-reconstructed venue can accommodate up to 2,200 visitors.

Silvo Rebić owns the only violin production and repair workshop in Samobor.

The band came to Croatia to perform for a Chinese entrepreneur.