“I don’t like perfect tuning,” says composer Goran Bregovic. “Perfect tuning makes me feel uncomfortable. I like to have a little madness, you know. And that’s where the madness is — when the instruments are a little bit out of tune.”
Bregovic — a multimillion-selling star in the Balkan countries
— is now in the U.S. for a 10-city tour. He recently wrapped a
European road trip that included performances in Switzerland, Spain,
France, Moscow and Bulgaria. (Monday’s show here is part of the
Cleveland Museum of Art’s Viva and Gala series.)
Bregovic’s Weddings and Funerals Orchestra is an exotic circus of
influences that includes anywhere from 10 to 40 members. Its largest
incarnation features a Serbian gypsy band, a 12-piece string section, a
choir of 15 male voices and three Bulgarian women singers. For the
Cleveland show, Bregovic is bringing approximately 20 musicians. He
plays guitar and writes based on traditional Eastern Europe music. But
he interprets it in his own extravagant style. His latest album,
Alkohol, teeters on the inebriated and captivating sound of
focused energy and rhythmically hot players not quite in tune.
Born in Sarajevo, Bregovic comes from a place where East meets West
and social occasions are steeped in the traditions of Catholics, Jews
and Muslims. “As a composer from such a place, you find influences from
different music,” he says. “It is a little Frankenstein-y.”
Bregovic’s career has also been a little Frankenstein-y — huge
and successful on all fronts, but stitched together out of influences
as diverse as his homeland’s various cultures. His first instrument was
the violin, but “as a young kid, you understand immediately that girls
prefer guitar players,” he says.
After shuffling among schools, Bregovic was on his own when he
turned 17. He supported himself playing strip joints, where the scene
is considerably different than at gentlemen clubs in the U.S. “During
the Communist time, strip bars weren’t just about naked women,” he
says. “It was a refuge for artists and intellectuals.”
Before he turned 20, Bregovic formed Bijelo dugme, a Balkan rock
band that was so popular, they were referred to as the “Yugoslav
Beatles.” One writer even noted they’d sold more records than there
were record players in the country. The band performed from 1974 to
1989, just before the Bosnian War started.
Bregovic began composing film music around that time. His first
project was the score for director Emir Kusturica’s Time of the
Gypsies in 1989. He followed that with Kusturica’s Arizona
Dream, which starred Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway; Iggy Pop sang
Bregovic’s songs on the soundtrack. Three years ago, he scored
Borat. He’s also written for singer Cesaria Evora. In all, he’s
sold more than six million albums.
In 1998, Bregovic founded the Weddings and Funerals Orchestra. It’s
got almost nothing in common with the mercenary cover bands you hear at
weddings over here. “I’m from a place where a wedding or funeral is
still the two most important things in [a person’s] life,” he says. “My
first trumpet player comes from a village of 20 houses, and when he got
married, he had 1,500 people there for three days. In this place, there
are huge stars that still play weddings.”
Bregovic isn’t one of them. His Weddings and Funerals Orchestra
plays mostly original music informed by Balkan traditions, in concert
settings. To build the band, he looked for players that would give the
group an aggressive, rustic sound. “I throw out all the new woodwinds
and replace them with old woodwinds,” he says. “I throw out all the
brass and replace it with Gypsy brass. It’s always a little bit out of
tune. It’s a little bit like punk. It’s not just the music.”
There’s another punk ideal Bregovic subscribes to: He likes to drink
onstage. He prefers plum brandy, “slivovitz” — which happens to
be the name of the first section of the two-part Alkohol. The
second is called “champagne.” But, adds Bregovic, “The only place I drink is onstage.”
This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2009.