Sevdah Foundation: 100 years since the birth of Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo

(Patria) - The Sevdah Foundation, in cooperation with the Public Institution Museum of Sarajevo and the Association of Composers and Music Creators AMUS, will organize a series of activities on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo.

Thus, on July 24th and 25th, at Svrzina kuća, meetings celebrating the beauty of song and stories about the life and work of Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo will be held, it was announced from the Sevdah Foundation.

The first day, July 24th, the program will mark Šerbo's life and career through a presentation of Radio Sarajevo's programming content to which Šerbo contributed. This is an opportunity for the audience to once again encounter famous radio voices, Šerbo's friends and contemporaries (Enver Šadinlija, Rinko Golubović, Midhat Kulender), and vocal performers, Šerbo's protégés (Vesna Hadžić, Fahrudin Bajrić, Hamid Ragipović Besko, Bahrija Hadžialić). In the program, the audience will listen to selected sevdalinka songs that Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo immortalized through his research and arrangement work.

On the second day, July 25th, pioneers of the sevdalinka music scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina will sing the most beautiful songs from the authorial opus of Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo. Most of these songs (such as Tebi majko misli lete, Stara staza, Vratnik pjeva, U čaršiju poslala me nana, Bulbul pjeva okolo Mostara…) today, decades later, live among the people on an equal footing with traditional songs. They will be performed by recognizable names of sevdah from the younger generation: Alma Subašić, Zanin Berbić, Safet Bučo, Hamza Šantić, as well as excellent young singers whose rise to prominence is yet to come: Melika Klisura, Memnun Muzaferija, Kenan Katadžić, Nejla Keškić Muzaferija. The host of this program is the journalist and announcer of Radio Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armin Redžić.

Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo (1925-1987) was an unsurpassed musical genius, author of numerous sevdah songs, composer of Bosnian dances, and a master of the accordion. As an absolute pitch listener, a top connoisseur of harmonic structures, and also of the old Bosnian traditional expression, Šerbo gave sevdalinka the form we experience today as the "original way of interpretation." He was the first instrumentalist to be heard on Radio Sarajevo's program on April 10, 1945. He spent his full working life in this medium, until 1985. Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo has a street named after him in Sarajevo, and the award for creativity based on the foundations of traditional music, awarded by the Association of Composers and Music Creators AMUS, bears his name.

All events start at 9 PM at Svrzina kuća in Sarajevo. Admission is free, and the musical accompaniment for the vocal soloists on both evenings will be the large orchestra of the Sevdah Foundation, led by Anes Frljak and Damir Galijašević.

The next events dedicated to Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of this musical genius, will take place in the autumn and winter periods. These will include workshops on the Bosnian style of accordion playing, round tables, scientific conferences on the life and work of Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo, book promotions, collections of works, concerts, and exhibitions of Šerbo's musical legacy, all organized by the Sevdah Foundation.