Slobodan Trkulja

Slobodan Trkulja

Slobodan Trkulja , (born May 29, 1977 in Odžaci , Yugoslavia , today Serbia ), is a Serbian multi-instrumentalist , vocalist and arranger who is assigned to jazz rock, fusion and world music. Trkulja has a formal diploma in jazz, but has proven to be an outstanding bearer of the revival of traditional Balkan music , as well as a innovator of a modern interpretation of Balkan folk music , through the founding of the band Balkanopolis . Many younger musicians on the Balkan Peninsula have recently followed his example of integrating traditional folk instruments and elements of 'ethnomusic' into modern arrangements .

Musical training and influences

Trkulja grew up in Novi Sad and graduated from high school in Sremski Karlovci . At the age of ten he had started with the clarinet and found himself in folklore ensembles at an early age. Due to formal requirements, he could not realize his wish to enroll in the music academy in Novi Sad, as he had not graduated from a music school. Therefore, the family looked for an alternative academy in which a musical primary and secondary school education was not necessary. In 1998, after passing the exam at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in Holland , he was accepted into the saxophone department, where he graduated in 2004.

By chance the not religiously educated Trkulja visited the Kovilj Monastery after his return to Serbia, where he experienced a spiritual change to the Christian faith by listening to Byzantine church music for the first time. The monastery itself was used as a recording location for the recording of the album Kingdom of Balkanopolis . The further development of his arrangements with elements of Orthodox church music through the integration of church choirs emphasizes the sacred component of his music. From the combination of rock musicians, string ensembles and sacred vocal performers such as Aleksandar Jovanović, the cantor of Hilandar Monastery , Trkulja has developed a style of rock symphony that is typical for him .

His strongly spiritually inspired music was most recently premiered in the native city of Emperor Constantine I for the 1700th anniversary of the Milan Agreement in the commissioned composition Music of Constantinople at the fortress of Niš in 2013. Here Trkulja again gathered the band Balkanopolis with a string orchestra, as well as rock instrumental soloists such as David Rhodes , Byzantine church choirs and traditional Balkan instrument players.

As part of the UN World Peace Day 2014 , Trkulja performed with the Croatian pop and jazz diva Josipa Lisac accompanied by the Metropole Orkest on September 21, 2014 in the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam as part of the reconciliation efforts of post-conflict societies (MasterPeace in Concert).

Trkulja himself is particularly an interpreter of traditional wind instruments, in particular shepherd's flute and bagpipes, the traditional lyrical folk instruments of Balkan villages and shepherds. He also integrated, for example, one of the oldest epic solo instruments on the Balkan Peninsula, the gusle , into an arrangement in the piece Svadbarska (German wedding song), which was also performed live at the 2010 EXPO in Shanghai with the accompaniment of the Balkanopolis band.

Musical style

Trkulja has mastered 15 musical instruments and is best known for solo and big band arrangements in which he alternately plays the clarinet, saxophone, bagpipes or recorder. Trkulja accompanies himself vocal and uses elements of the Balkan lyrical music tradition. In particular, the chants from Byzantine church music based on Church Slavonic foundations are striking.

Trkulja became known through a performance during the live broadcast of the New Year's Concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 2002, where he was praised as a musical genius by exuberant criticism in the Dutch press. Trkulja also experienced a stronger reception in Serbia itself thanks to the cooperation with the last European big band, the Metropole Orkest (2008) and the Belgrade Philharmonic (2004). In a solo performance at Exit (2006) in his hometown of Novi Sad, he experimented with the live improvisation of loops of various instruments he played on stage to imitate the big band sound in solo performances and thus developed a style-forming medium for him, which also resulted in a breakthrough helped in the young scene in Serbia. His real breakthrough in Serbia, however, was his participation in the competition for the Serbian preliminary decisions of the Beovizija for the Eurovision Song Contest / Chanson d'Eurovision 2007. Here he took second place. Trkulja was also a special guest with the Metropole Orkest at the 1st semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade .

For his second album with the band Balkanopolis ( Kingdom of Balkanopolis ) 2010 he engaged the rock musicians David Rhodes, John Giblin and Tony Levin . Was produced Kingdom of Balkanopolis in Peter Gabriel 's "Real World Studios" by Richard Evans, the arrangement took Adam Ajana in the "Gateway Mastering studio" in the US.

Trkulja now lives with his wife and two daughters in a village in northern Serbia.

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1. ↑ Rastko Rakovljevic (2009): DEAD PUBLIC SPACES - LIVE PRIVATE CORNERS: (RE) CONTEXTUALIZATION OF MUSICALLY PUBLIC AND PRIVATE . Musicology, no. 9, 2009 PDF ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ "The Music of Constantine's City" in the city of his birth! Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Serbia and Croatia ( Memento of the original dated November 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Zvira Voda - Josipa Lisac ft. Slobodan Trkulja (MasterPeace in Concert)
5. ↑ YouTube, Balkanopolis in Shanghai China for World Expo 2010 [1]
6. ↑ NRC Handelsblad, online January 2, 2002 Servisch genie zet Concertgebouw in vuur en vlam (Eng. Serbian genius sets the Concertgebouw on fire ) ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.