Sanja Ilić & Balkanika

Biography

Sanja Ilić & Balkanika are a Serbian band. They play traditional music from the Balkans combined with modern elements. Their opus comprises old music tunes from the Balkans with splendid musicians playing traditional instruments, performing music which conjures the atmosphere of the Balkans region, in a new attire for the new millennium. Aleksandar-Sanja Ilić is one of the most famous composers of pop and rock music of former Yugoslavia, and, nowadays - Serbia. His career started in the band Sa...

Sanja Ilić & Balkanika are a Serbian band. They play traditional music from the Balkans combined with modern elements. Their opus comprises old music tunes from the Balkans with splendid musicians playing traditional instruments, performing music which conjures the atmosphere of the Balkans region, in a new attire for the new millennium.

Aleksandar-Sanja Ilić is one of the most famous composers of pop and rock music of former Yugoslavia, and, nowadays - Serbia. His career started in the band San in Belgrade. He has composed songs for almost all major singers. Many of his compositions won the title "The Hit of the Year". He has won many awards at festivals in former Yugoslavia.

With the band Aska, he participated at the Eurovision Song Contest 1982, held in Harrogate, United Kingdom. Their song, "Halo, halo" ("Hello, Hello"), ended 14th, being awarded with 21 points.

Sanja Ilić writes music for theatre, film and television, and his instrumental music "Delta Project" is the all-time most frequently broadcast and best selling project of instrumental music in former Yugoslavia.

Writing music scores for theatre performances also brought songs which have become very popular and have outlived the performances for which they had been written, as, for instance, "Plava ptica" ("The Blue Bird"). Sanja has also worked with actors who sing, and has made a significant opus in that field. Each year at the Herceg Novi Music Festival (Montenegro), the first evening of the festival is reserved for actors. This musical spectacle is designed by Sanja Ilić. In April 1999, during the bombardment of Serbia, he composed the song "Moj grad još peva..." ("My City is Still Singing..."), referring to Belgrade. The performing artists were the very actors who had for years been cooperating with Sanja. Recently, he has been obsessed with ethnic music of the Balkans, which resulted in his writing the original music for the BALKAN 2000 project. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.