Traditional music and dance
Singing with the gusle is one of the most important traditional practices in the country. Backed by this plaintive sounding single-stringed instrument, singers, often charismatic, have been performing great historical epics for centuries in Serbia. A popular mode of expression of cultural identity, the art of the guslar relies on their ability to dramatize legendary events and ancient or recent history while also conveying the community's value system. This singing accompanied by the gusle is so important that it was included in 2018 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The other major Serbian folk practice listed by Unesco is the kolo. Combining Ottoman rhythm and Slavic steps, the kolo is originally a village round, where boys and girls danced holding hands. If the kolo has evolved into a real show with multiple choreographies, its base has not changed and its dancers always evolve at one time or another around a circle, hand in hand, arms stretched towards the ground, with no or almost no movement above the waist. The spectacular aspect of kolo is its accelerating rhythm. Slow at the beginning, it gradually increases to reach a climax towards the end, bordering on frenzy. This probably explains why some of its performers have become stars in the country, Mirko Kodić in particular, a great accordionist who has composed some beautiful kolo. His recordings are an excellent gateway to the genre. Otherwise, it is always seen danced a lot in all the big celebrations, holding each other by the shoulder, in a twirling spirit.
Another notable dance in Serbia, the čoček has small groups of people dancing to a slower rhythm, facing each other. Although partly improvised, it consists essentially of a combination of prodigious swaying and hand and shoulder movements. Still the preserve of the Roma community - even though it is practiced outside of it - this dance is a very important part of the gypsy culture in Serbia. Something you know if you are a minimum of cinephile and if you know the films of Kusturica, the child of the country.
All his films - especially Underground or Time of the Gypsies - contain their share of trubači (in Serbian the "trumpeters"), these brass bands particularly popular in central and southern Serbia, with feverish music sometimes close to delirium. One only has to listen to a mainstay of the classical gypsy repertoire like Mesečina to realize this. If the country has an amateur orchestra on every street corner (that's the feeling in some cities), the genre has its stars like Fejat Sejdić, the "trumpet king", a virtuoso who never learned to read a score and plays only by ear, or Boban Marković, who has toured the world extensively. Let's also mention the group Odjila, which, although less traditionalist, has done a lot to make Serbian gypsy tunes and aesthetics known, and of course the great, great Goran Bregović, who composed the soundtracks for Kusturica's films and became the ambassador of this music in the world. A perfect place to listen to this music is the festival in Guča, one of the major events in the field and one of the most attended festivals in the country.
Serbian folk music has had some very great voices that are imperative to have listened to if you really want to embrace the subject, starting with Lepa Lukić and Bilja Krstić, the two stars, Predrag Živković Tozovac, who also hosted TV shows, or Šaban Bajramović, the "Frank Sinatra of the Roma", who can actually be seen in Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat. A new star of Serbian traditional music is Danijela Veselinović, nicknamed the "princess of the trumpet" and who gives a little fun back to local folklore. She was endorsed by Boban Marković himself.
There is no shortage of opportunities to cross musical and choreographic folklore. For example, in Belgrade, since 2003, the Belgrade Beer Fest has been one of the unmissable events of the year. If, traditionally, the big names of the Balkan rock scene perform there, there are also many folklore groups.
In the provinces, the festival of traditional music in Zlatibor, one of the oldest events in the region, invites many singers and traditional music groups, including the famous trumpeters; the Drina regattais increasingly popular and includes its share of folk music concerts, while the Srbobran festival invites dances and folk songs from Vojvodina: tamburaši, the less noisy but equally festive local equivalents of the trubači of Western Serbia.
Turbo-folk
Bulgaria has its chalga, Romania its manele, Albania its tallava, but Serbia has the best known of them all: turbo-folk.
Since the 1980's and 1990's, this bewitching music installed between modernity and tradition has taken the lion's share in Serbia. An explosive mix of traditional Serbian music with elements of electronic music, Eurodance, hip-hop and even Turkish and Greek folk music, this jerky, synthetic and orientalizing aesthetic invaded the country's cultural landscape at the beginning of the Milošević era, which encouraged it. Private radio stations and channels, such as Pink, even built their empire on this music. Unifying like no other, this music is listened to by all strata of society without age or social class barriers, from cab drivers to politicians. If it loses some speed these days, turbo-folk remains a sure value. Its legend is the great Ceca (real name Svetlana Ražnatović), an icon with a powerful voice, dominating a constellation of stars, most often female, such as Jelena Karleuša, a kind of local Lady Gaga, an idol of the LGBT community for whom she regularly takes up the cause, or Lepa Brena, one of the most beloved artists in the Balkans. The latter is notably famous for having arrived at the Bucharest stadium in a helicopter, in a staging that would make Hollywood blush. A political and economic tool that has helped build huge fortunes, turbo-folk remains hated by the new urban elites because of its kitschy, vulgar image, glorifying crime, moral corruption and nationalism.
Classical music
Serbian classical music can be considered to take shape in the hands of the first great national composer: Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac (1856-1914). Often referred to as the "father of Serbian music", he is the most important figure of national musical romanticism and helped define a Serbian art music by collecting traditional songs in the manner of Bartók. Still revered in Serbia, the great Serbian school of music bears his name, he appears on the country's currency (the 50-dinar bill) and a major event is dedicated to him: the Mokranjčevi Dani
.After him, Serbian composers Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić and Miloje Milojević, all born in the 1880s, marked the Serbian music of their generation by introducing modern styles and a high technical level in their composition while Stanislav Binički remains famous for composing the first Serbian opera Na uranku
in 1903. Ljubica Marić (1909-2003), a composer who synthesized Byzantine Orthodox church music with postmodernism or minimalism, is widely regarded as the most original and influential Serbian composer of the 20th century. A more recent figure to know, Ivan Tasovac (1966-2021) is a Serbian (and later Yugoslav) pianist who served as Minister of Culture and Media as well as Director of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. The latter performs at the Ilija Kolarac Foundation in Belgrade. In Novi Sad, the municipal concert hall is to be watched closely since Stefan Milenković, one of the country's virtuoso violinists, has just taken over the direction. Finally, another violin virtuoso, Nemanja Radulović, is well known in France as he regularly appears on our stages and TV sets.Jazz
Jazz in Serbia appeared at the end of the 1920s, when the Micky Jazz Orchestra was formed. Very quickly popular, jazz even has a dedicated orchestra that plays daily on Radio Belgrade. At the end of the 1950s, Louis Armstrong played in Serbia, which contributed to the popularization of the genre. The first great Serbian jazzmen such as pianist Bora Roković, clarinetist Mihailo Živanović (a legend), drummer Branislav Kovačev or saxophonist Jovan Miković appeared at that time.
Today, the country has a few stars of the genre like Bojan Zulfikarpašić, known as "Bojan Z", one of the sure values of world jazz. Although he has been living in France for twenty years, this native of Belgrade likes to come and play here, especially at the Belgrade Jazz Festival, which invites the best of the international scene, in a selection that is sharp and open to all trends.
