From the smoke filled kafanas (cafes) of the former Yugoslavia, longtime Gypsy music diva Ljiljana Buttler and legendary singer Saban Bajramovic join the preeminent band to emerge from the Balkans since the war, Mostar Sevdah Reunion. The soul stirring improvisatory virtuosity of these singers and the combination of Sevdah and Gypsy songs will move and comfort you. Accordion, clarinet, violin, trumpet and percussion envelop popular songs from the 1960s to warm lamenting Sevdalinkas first introduced to the region some 400 years ago under Ottoman rule. These are mature musicians with the astounding skill to maintain equilibrium between tradition and innovative interpretation.
Mostar Sevdah Reunion is an exquisite group of artists who share a passion for a traditional Bosnian genre called “Sevdah” which is more than 400 years old. They are unique on the world music scene because of their diversite musical backgrounds and individual virtuosity in a collective. They have never performed two identical gigs in a row. Some might say that these musicians live for Sevdah and that the only reason their existence is to decode and represent traditional music from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The story of MSR began in 1993 when a couple of tracks were recorded on audiocassettes and distributed among friends. Those were tumultuous times of war in the Balkans and for MSR the main reason to record was to getaway and try to forget, for a one single moment, the surrounding atrocities and suffering. MSR also made a pledge and promise to themselves that "the whole world will know about Sevdah" one day when war comes to an end. They fulfilled this promise and recorded their first album in 1998.
