ETHNO, FOLK & WORLD MUSIC

From the very beginning of my occupation with early Music I tried to learn as much as possible from our rich Croatian traditional folk music heritage, trying to find something that could be called "Croatian Folk Improvisation". Our singers and instrumentalists do not have and do not need the knowledge of music notation. They sing, dance and play "by heart" and their interpretation i.e. improvisation is therefore always new and different.

Beside playing various wind instruments of Istria, in the mid-eighties I started to play the mandolin and lijerica (lirica) of Dalmatia and later gusle, too.

For many years my great desire has been to perform the music of the Spanish Jews, the Sephardi, as for many centuries a small but important minority of them was living "next door", in Sarajevo and in some other Bosnian towns.

In Vienna I collaborated in several projects with different Austrian, Greek, Israeli, Tunisian and Turkish ensembles and soloists, enjoying playing this music. Its melodies and rhythms always reminded me of the music from Macedonia that I could listen to on the radio almost every day during my childhood in ex-Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, I had the great opportunity and honour to play and record with two excellent Indian musicians, brothers Maharaj together with Austrian guitarist - composer Walter Valdinho Langer.