GET TO KNOW 'SEVDAH' - MOSTAR SEVDAH REUNION ("MOJ DILBERE")

The word 'sevdah' comes from the Arabic word sawda, meaning “black gall.” Ancient Arabic and Greek doctors thought that emotion was governed by four humors; black gall was the one responsible for melancholy moods. Sawda became sevda in Turkish and took on the meaning of a painful sort of love. The Bosnians added an “h,” and so sewda became sewdah.

Called the blues of Bosnia, sevdalinkas are often compared to American gospel and Portuguese fado. In Ottoman times, the songs were accompanied by the Turkish saz, a long-necked, lute-like instrument. Beginning with the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the accordion became popular and prevailed during the 20th century.

Traditionally, sevdalinkas were an informal affair.
Family and friends would gather and someone would play an instrument—a clarinet, a guitar, an accordion—as they sang the old songs, eliciting merak (pleasure) for the soul. Sevdalinkas were not just songs about frustrated love; they were also songs about everyday life.

MBESHTETUNI NEN TINGUJT E FILMIT "MBI RRUGEN E QUMESHTIT" (OST, 2016)

Ka nje skene te filmi ‘On the Milky Road’ (2016) i maestros Kusturica E. qe eshte per tu permendur neper renditje skenografidhe mes kinematografeve; behet fjale per protagonistet te cilet fillojne e ndjejne dicka e kerkohen me sy brenda te nje barake me ne sfond nje muzike te Silvana Armenulic (kengetare e njohur nga Bosnja).

Dhe ja, muzika qe mua me mbeti ne mendje eshte kjo qe vijon, nje dedikim i dashurise se pamundur, ndoshta pikerisht ajo ideale, nuk mendoni?

What use is this life to me without you darling,

when I have no desire for another love?

I dream of you, I dream almost every night,

only you are in my heart.

AMIRA MEDUNJANIN: “SINGING IS A MISSION THAT I EMBRACED WITH ALL MY HEART”

Born and raised in Sarajevo, Amira Medunjanin is the “great lady”, despite her young age, of Bosnian sevdah, a musical idiom thematically related to fado, morna and rebetiko. 

Self-taught, possessing a “warm” voice likened by some to that of Billie Holiday, she approaches sevdah with a “fresh” look and often a jazzy mood. 

DAMIR IMAMOVIC'S SEVDAH TAKHT

Apart from fluency in sevdah and other musical genres this trio is characteristic for their readyness to open their ears and play everything they know...

"We’re trying to find these traces, for example, of the odd rhythms in Bosnian music and we didn’t bring them in from jazz: We found them in the very melody we play.

We are using the potential that is already there... We are reopening these processes that have already happened in this music and are trying to see what the other possibilities are." [Damir Imamović]