PICTURES

FESTIVAL DI TORRECHIARA 2003

“What should we do the night before the end of the world? Let’s dance and try to be happy one more time... at least”.

As a result of (or perhaps even because of) the tragedies which have overcome the Balkans in the last decade, the cultural life of the former Yugoslavia is very exciting, one only has to think of the successes of filmmaker Emir Kusturica and, in music, those of Goran Bregovic. One of the most active performers of this fertile cultural scene is Boris Kovac, composer, instrumentalist and multi-media artist born in 1955 at Novi Sad, capital of the multi-ethnic region of Vojvodina, situated on the Pannonica Plain near the Hungarian border.

Many of his projects are linked with the theatre. In 1982 Kovac  founded the Ritual Nova Ensemble, a flexible, loosely affiliated group of musicians, visual artists, actors and dancers and since 1989 he has been running the Chamber Theatre of Music Ogledalo and has taken part in dozens of festivals in Europe and America. After war broke out Boris Kovac lived for several years in Italy, Slovenia and Austria before returning to Yugoslavia, motivated by the desire to participate in the cultural reconstruction of his country.

Inspired in his ideals by the work of Bela Bartok 70 years ago, Boris Kovac places himself at the crossroads where traditional music meets the contemporary musical scene. “The cultural wealth of my region and my city” he declared recently, “consists of about 20 different nationalities living together: so it is quite impossible to work out from which folklore my music comes. The decisive factor, however, is the use of traditional sources as indispensable food to feed creativity.” The same fertile mix reveals itself in the composition of the orchestra. Accordion, guitar, double bass, clarinet and percussion are played by musicians who are half Serb and half Hungarian, half Rumanian half Macedonian, whose origins are impossible to trace conclusively.

Boris Kovac’s musical language is even more varied and influenced by an unimaginable array of sources, so it is all the more surprising thing that his compositions and style also possess a fascinating unique quality peculiar to him. His latest project, “The Last Balkan Tango” flowed into the production of the recording of the same name, which has received all kinds of recognition, including (and worth a mention) the four ‘f’ from Telèrama, the best rating from one of the best music reviews in France.

It’s an apocalyptic dance party capable of integrating the Serbian, Hungarian and Rumanian roots of the composer with the influence of Balkan folklore, jazz, the waltz, tango and the lost ambiences of central Europe. The result is naturally impossible to describe in words: you have to imagine fires of different colours all burning together, the orchestra of the Titanic playing in celebration, the bed of the Danube covered in flowers while the lights and sounds of a floating dance hall transform the evening into a dream... In the end, as Boris Kovac likes to say, “music is the ultimate consolation between heaven and earth, the ultimate joy before the end of the world”.

Translation by Sarah J Hyde - www.thelanguage.biz

Back to top