Goran BregoviÃÂ (; born 22 March 1950) is a recording artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is one of the most internationally known modern musicians and composers of the Slavic-speaking countries in the Balkans, and one of the few former Yugoslav musicians who have performed at major international venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall and l'Olympia.
A Sarajevo native, BregoviÃÂ started out with the bands Kodeksi and Jutro, but rose to prominence as the main creative mind and lead guitarist of Bijelo Dugme, widely considered one of the most popular and influential recording acts ever to exist in the SFR Yugoslavia. After Bijelo Dugme split up, he embarked on several critically and commercially successful solo projects, and started composing film scores. Among his better known film scores are three of Emir Kusturica's films (Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream and Underground). For Silent Gunpowder, BregoviÃÂ won the Golden Arena for Best Film Music at the 1990 Pula Film Festival, among other awards. He has also composed for the Academy Award-nominated film La Reine Margot and the Cannes-entered film The Serpent's Kiss.
During his five-decade career, Bregoviàhas composed for critically acclaimed singers, including Sezen Aksu, Kayah, Iggy Pop, à  aban BajramoviÃÂ, George Dalaras, Cesária ÃÂvora and Severina.
Born in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to a Croat father Franjo Bregoviàand a Serb mother Borka Perià ¡iÃÂ, Goran grew up with two younger siblingsâÂÂbrother Predrag and sister Dajana. Their father was from the Croatian region of Prigorje, specifically the village of Sveti Petar ÃÂvrstec near Krià ¾evci, while their mother was born in Virovitica to parents that had shortly before her birth arrived in the nearby village of ÃÂemernica, settling there from the village of Kazanci near Gacko in East Herzegovina.
Goran's maternal grandfather fought in the Royal Serbian Army at the Salonica front during World War I and as a reward received land in Slavonia, where he soon moved his family. When the World War II in Yugoslavia began, Goran's grandfather joined the Yugoslav Partisans, and his grandmother, two uncles, aunt and mother were taken to the Jasenovac concentration camp, where at the gate of the camp they were exchanged for some captured Germans. The family arrived in Serbia whilst his grandmother supported the children throughout the war by smuggling tobacco from Herzegovina. She jumped off the train before entering the Belgrade train station. Goran's maternal uncle was the Serb priest and Chetnik leader Radojica Perià ¡ià(1906 â April 1945), one of the main leaders of the June 1941 uprising in eastern Herzegovina during World War II. During the war he was commander of the Chetnik Gacko Brigade, who were the first guerrilla force in Nazi-occupied Europe to liberate territory. Perià ¡iàwas killed by the Ustashas in April 1945.
Franjo BregoviÃÂ fought on the Partisan side during World War II. Shortly after the war, he attended a Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) military school in Virovitica, a town where he met Goran's mother, Borka. Franjo BregoviÃÂ soon landed his first job, teaching ballistics at a military school in Sarajevo, so the couple moved there. Goran, their first child, was born in 1950 in Sarajevo.
Goran was ten years old when his parents divorced. In later interviews, he mentioned his father's alcoholism as the reason for the breakdown of their marriage. Soon after the split, his father moved to Livno, taking Goran's younger brother Predrag with him while Goran remained living with his mother in Sarajevo, visiting his father and brother every summer in Livno. Their father soon retired and eventually moved back to his home village in Hrvatsko Zagorje while Goran's brother Predrag later moved back to Sarajevo for university studies.
Goran played violin in a music school. However, deemed untalented, he was expelled during second grade. His musical education was thus reduced to what his friend taught him until Goran's mother bought him his first guitar in his early teens. BregoviÃÂ wanted to enroll in a fine arts high school, but his aunt told his mother that it was supposedly full of homosexuals, which precipitated his mother's decision to send him to a technical (traffic) school. As a compromise for not getting his way, she allowed him to grow his hair long.
Upon entering high school, teenage Bregoviàjoined the school band Izohipse, where he began on bass guitar. Soon, however, he was kicked out of that school too (this time for misbehavior â he crashed into a school-owned Mercedes-Benz). Bregoviàthen entered grammar school and its school band Beà ¡tije (again as a bass guitar player). When he was 16, his mother left him and moved to the coast, meaning that other than having a few relatives to rely on, he mostly had to take care of himself. He did that by playing folk music in a kafana in Konjic, working on construction sites, and selling newspapers.
Spotting him at a Beà ¡tije gig in 1969, à ½eljko Bebek invited eighteen-year-old Bregoviàto play bass guitar in his band Kodeksi, which Goran gladly accepted.
Eventually, Kodeksi shifted setup so Bregoviàmoved from bass to lead guitar, resulting in Kodeksi having the following line-up during summer 1970: Goran BregoviÃÂ, à ½eljko Bebek, Zoran Redà ¾iàand MiliàVukaà ¡inoviÃÂ. All of them would eventually become members of Bijelo Dugme at some point in the future. At the time, they were largely influenced by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. During the fall of 1970, this resulted in the departure of à ½eljko Bebek, who (both as rhythm guitar player and singer) got phased out of the band. At the end of the year, Goran's mother and Zoran's brother arrived in Naples and took them back to Sarajevo.
In the autumn of 1971, Bregoviàenrolled at the University of Sarajevo's Faculty of Philosophy, studying philosophy and sociology. He soon quit, however. At the same time, MiliàVukaà ¡inoviàleft for London, so Bregoviàformed a band with Nuno Arnautaliàcalled Jutro (Morning), which Redà ¾iàsoon joined as well. Over the next few years, the band changed line-ups frequently, and on 1 January 1974 modified its name to Bijelo Dugme ("White Button").
From 1974 to 1989, BregoviÃÂ played lead guitar and was the main creative force behind Bijelo Dugme. For years they stood as one of the most popular bands in SFR Yugoslavia. Just as with Jutro previously, he continued as Bijelo Dugme's undisputed leader and decision-maker as well as its public face in the Yugoslav print and electronic media once the band started taking off commercially.
Over the band's fifteen-year run, in addition to their enormous popularity at home, led by BregoviÃÂ, Bijelo Dugme made several attempts at expanding their prominence outside of Yugoslavia. In late 1975, while recording their second album, Ã Â ta bi dao da si na mom mjestu, in London, they additionally recorded an English language track called "Playing the Part" (translated version of their Serbo-Croatian track "Ã Â ta bi dao da si na mom mjestu", itself an uncredited cover of Argent's 1972 track "I Am the Dance of Ages") that was packaged as a promo single for English music journalists. Never officially released for mass distribution, the track quickly fell into oblivion.
Bijelo Dugme had somewhat better luck with touring abroad, which almost entirely took place in the Eastern Bloc countries as part of their respective cultural exchange programs with SFR Yugoslavia. The band briefly toured the Polish People's Republic during April 1977, a 9-concert leg as part of the tour in support of their third album, Eto! Baà ¡ hoÃÂu!. During their 10-day Polish tour, the band played two concerts on back-to-back nights in Warsaw, followed by Olsztyn, Zielona Góra, three shows on back-to-back days in Poznaà Â, and finally two shows on the same day in Kalisz. While in Poland, they also shot a 30-minute television special for TVP3 Katowice, a regional Katowice-based branch of the state-owned Telewizja Polska. Later that year, following the tour's culmination at a triumphant open-air concert at HajduÃÂka ÃÂesma in Belgrade, Bregoviàwent to serve his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) stint. Assigned to a Nià ¡-based unit, the twenty-seven-year-old reported for service on 3 November 1977 and would spend the following year away from music, a period during which the band was also on hiatus.
During early 1982, as part of an event bringing together past and future Winter Olympic hosts, the band played in Innsbruck, Austria as representatives of the city of Sarajevo and SFR Yugoslavia, the site of the upcoming Winter Olympics. On return to Yugoslavia from Innsbruck, the band had its baggage confiscated by the Yugoslav customs after undeclared musical equipment was found among their luggage. Some six months later, during summer 1982, Bijelo Dugme went on an impromptu tour of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, playing 41 shows throughout the country from 15 July to 31 August 1982. Despite the tour in support of their latest studio album, Doà ¾ivjeti stotu, being over for more than a year, and having no new material to promote, the band reportedly accepted the tour of Bulgaria in order to recover some of the funds they had lost after getting fined by the Yugoslav customs over the attempt to bring undeclared musical equipment into the country.
In summer 1985, following a decade of continuous rejection for tours of the Soviet Union by the cultural attaché of the Soviet embassy in Yugoslavia, Bijelo Dugme was finally approved and booked to play in Moscow on 28 July 1985, on the same bill with fellow Yugoslav rock act Bajaga i Instruktori, at a huge open-air concert at Gorky Park as part of the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students. Ahead of the show, Bregoviàdecided to sequester the band in Budva for two weeks in order to rehearse for the Moscow show, an indication of the seriousness with which they approached this particular concert. However, once in Moscow, due to overcrowding at Gorky Park and resulting safety concerns, the event was interrupted around 10 p.m. after the Bajaga i Instruktori set before Bijelo Dugme even had a chance to take the stage. Two days later on 30 July 1985, instead at the marquee Gorky Park in central Moscow, Bijelo Dugme got to play the Dynamo Arena on the city outskirts at an unpopular noon time slot.
Between Bijelo Dugme's studio releases and tours, in-demand Bregoviàworked on various side projects in Yugoslavia. These included releasing a solo record in 1976 and composing two movie soundtracksâÂÂ1977's ' and 1979's '.
He also tried his hand at music production, producing Idoli's 1980 seven-inch single "MaljÃÂiki" / "Retko te viÃÂam sa devojkama" and co-producing, alongside Kornelije KovaÃÂ, Zdravko ÃÂoliÃÂ's fourth studio album, Malo pojaÃÂaj radio, in 1981.
Bregoviàfurther made guest appearances on guitar on various studio recordings by different Yugoslav pop, folk, and rock acts: Neda Ukraden's track "Tri djevojke" (together with Bijelo Dugme bandmates Vlado Pravdiàand Zoran Redà ¾iÃÂ) off her 1976 album Ko me to od nekud doziva, Hanka Paldum's track "Zbog tebe" off her 1980 album ÃÂeà ¾nja, "Ne da/ne nego i/ili" track by Kozmetika off their 1983 eponymous album, Valentino's track "Pazi na ritam" off their 1983 debut album ValentiNo1, Riblja ÃÂorba's track "Disko mià ¡iÃÂ" off their 1985 album Istina, Merlin's 1986 album Teà ¡ko meni sa tobom (a joà ¡ teà ¾e bez tebe), MjeseÃÂari track "Gdje izlazià ¡ ovih dana" off their 1988 album One à ¡etaju od 1 do 2, and Piloti track "Tiho, tiho" off their 1990 album Nek te Bog ÃÂuva za mene.
During his time leading Bijelo Dugme, Bregoviàalso became involved in the financial and organizational side of the music business. In 1984, dissatisfied with their respective financial terms at the state-owned Jugoton label, Bijelo Dugme bandleader Bregoviàand one of Yugoslavia's biggest pop stars, Zdravko ÃÂoliÃÂ, got together to establish their own music label Kamarad, whichâÂÂvia a deal with state-owned Diskoton and later another newly established private label KomunaâÂÂwould end up co-releasing all of Bijelo Dugme's subsequent studio albums including three of ÃÂoliÃÂ's studio albums from 1984 to 1990. Considered an unusual move at the time in a communist country with nearly across-the-board public ownership that had just recently began allowing certain modes of private entrepreneurship, starting a privately owned record labelâÂÂcombined with BregoviÃÂ's and ÃÂoliÃÂ's high public profile in YugoslaviaâÂÂgot them both a lot of additional attention in the country's press. The company was registered in Radomlje near Domà ¾ale in SR Slovenia. Due to not having its own production facilities and distribution network, the new label entered a co-releasing agreement with Diskoton, thus essentially functioning as the legal entity that holds the licensing rights to the works of Bijelo Dugme and Zdravko ÃÂoliÃÂ. Kamarad's debut co-release was ÃÂoliÃÂ's 1984 studio album Ti si mi u krvi followed by Bijelo Dugme's self-titled studio album later that year with new vocalist Mladen "Tifa" VojiÃÂiÃÂ. The label would also co-release many of Dugme's and ÃÂoliÃÂ's later best-of compilations in addition to BregoviÃÂ's movie soundtrack albums as well as Vesna Zmijanac's 1992 album Ako me umirià ¡ sad.
During the late 1980s, a period that would turn out to be the final years of Bijelo Dugme, Bregoviàentered the world of film music. His first project was Emir Kusturica's Time of the Gypsies (1989) and it turned out to be a great success (both the film and the soundtrack). BregoviÃÂ's collaboration with Kusturica continued as the musician composed the soundtrack (which was performed by Iggy Pop) for Kusturica's next film, Arizona Dream (1993). During the Bosnian War, Bregoviàrelocated to Paris, but also lived in Belgrade. His next major project, music for Patrice Chéreau's Queen Margot, was a great success as well, and as a result, the film won two awards on the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. The next year's Golden Palm award went to Underground, for which Goran Bregoviàcomposed the music.
In 1997, he worked with Turkish singer Sezen Aksu on her album DüÃÂün ve Cenaze (Wedding and Funeral). After that album, he continued making composite albums with other musicians that were based on his music and singers' lyrics.
He made an album with George Dalaras in 1999 named Thessaloniki â Yannena with Two Canvas Shoes. In the same year, Bregoviàrecorded an album called Kayah i Bregovià(Kayah and BregoviÃÂ) with popular Polish singer Kayah, which sold over 700,000 copies in Poland (seven times platinum record).
In 2001, he recorded another album with another Polish singer, Krzysztof Krawczyk, titled Daj mi drugie à ¼ycie ("Give Me Second Life").
In 2005, BregoviÃÂ took part in three large farewell concerts of Bijelo Dugme.
A number of works created by BregoviÃÂ can be heard on the soundtrack to the 2006 film ', most notably "ÃÂurÃÂevdan". The film itself actually features more BregoviÃÂ samples than the soundtrack.
Two musical numbers by BregoviÃÂ, "Ne Siam Kurve Tuke Sijam Prostitutke" and "Gas, Gas", were featured in the soundtrack of the 2012 Brazilian telenovela Salve Jorge, on the television network Rede Globo.
For many years BregoviÃÂ performed with a large ensemble of musicians: a brass band, bagpipes, a string ensemble, a tuxedo-clad all-male choir from Belgrade, women wearing traditional Bulgarian costumes, and Roma singers make up his 40-piece band and orchestra.
Since 1998, and until about 2012, BregoviÃÂ has been performing his music mainly in the form of concerts all over the world with his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra. This consists of 10 people (in the small version) or 37 (in the large version, although, in some instances, this number varies, depending on participants from the host country).
Since 2012 the orchestra consists of 9 people (in the small version) or 19 (in the large version), as it played in New York at the Lincoln Center on 15 and 16 July 2016.
The small orchestra consists of Muharem "Muki" Rexhepi (vocals, drums), Bokan Stankovià(first trumpet), DragiàVeliÃÂovià(second trumpet), Stojan Dimov (sax, clarinet), Aleksandar Rajkovià(first trombone, glockenspiel), Miloà ¡ Mihajlovià(second trombone), female Bulgarian singers Daniela Radkova-Aleksandrova and Lyudmila Radkova-Traykova, and Goran himself. The large orchestra includes also string quartet: Ivana Mateijà(first violin), Bojana JovanoviÃÂ-Jotià(second violin), Saà ¡a Mirkovià(viola), and Tatjana JovanoviÃÂ-MirkoviÃÂ, as well as sextet of male voices: Dejan Pesià(first tenor), Milan Paniàand Ranko Jovià(second tenors), Aleksandar Novakovià(baritone), Duà ¡an Ljubinkoviàand Sinià ¡a Dutina (basses).
In previous years, the following musicians have performed in the orchestra: Ogi RadivojeviÃÂ and Alen AdemoviÃÂ (vocals, drums), Dalibor LukiÃÂ (second trumpet), Dejan ManigodiÃÂ (tuba), Vaska Jankovska (vocals).
In 2013, as part of his Asia-Pacific tour (including Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong), Bregoviàperformed with a string quartet, a male choir, Bulgarian singers and half of a brass band. The other part of the brass band â including bass and percussions â were being played from his computer. In 2017, he was a guest artist on Puerto Rican rapper Residente's album Residente on the song "El Futuro Es Nuestro" (Spanish for "The Future is Ours").
During the Eurovision 2008 final in Belgrade Arena, Serbia, he played as the interval act. He also composed the Serbian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010; 'Ovo Je Balkan' sung by Milan StankoviÃÂ.
BregoviÃÂ's compositions, extending Balkan musical inspirations to innovative extremes, draw upon European classicism and Balkan rhythms.
BregoviÃÂ's music carries Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Romani, Greek, Romanian, Albanian, Italian, Turkish and Polish themes and is a fusion of popular music, with traditional polyphonic music from the Balkans, tango and brass bands.
BregoviÃÂ's younger siblings, brother Predrag and sister Dajana, have lived in New York City and Split, respectively. His brother Predrag reportedly also spends time in the Syrmian village of Beà ¡ka in Serbia, where he owns a vineyard. Their sister Dajana BregoviÃÂ-MariÃÂ, a mother of four, died in May 2020 in Split, aged 61.
During the early 1970s, from a brief relationship with a Sarajevo-based dancer named Jasenka, BregoviÃÂ's first child, daughter à ½eljka, was born out of wedlock. à ½eljka lives in Austria, where she gave birth to Goran's granddaughter, Bianca.
With Bijelo Dugme's mid-1970s breakout commercial success and BregoviÃÂ's increased public profile in Yugoslavia, details of his lifestyle and romantic relationships also became fodder for the country's press. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, various Yugoslav print media outlets documented his relaionships, including on-and-off relationship with Dà ¾enana Sudà ¾uka, a Bosnian Muslim model 11 years his junior, whom he had reportedly first met in 1977 when she was sixteen, and a relationship with Serbian actress , ten years his junior, whom he began dating in 1979 during the production of the docudrama '.
In 1981, Bregoviàstarted a high-profile relationship with Serbian model Ljiljana Tica, eight years his junior. Having met at an airport, the couple's long-distance relationshipâÂÂBregoviàlived in Sarajevo, Tica in BelgradeâÂÂwas further complicated by the constant travelling as part of their respective occupations. They broke up in 1983. In later interviews, Tica revealed that she ended the relationship due to BregoviÃÂ's infidelity, discovering it while calling his home phone in Sarajevo only to have Sudà ¾uka answer it.
Eventually, in 1993, Bregoviàmarried his long-time girlfriend Sudà ¾uka in a civic wedding ceremony held in Paris with film director Emir Kusturica as the groom's best man and longtime Bijelo Dugme backing vocalist Amila Sulejmanoviàas the bride's maid of honour.
The couple has three daughters: Ema (born in March 1995), Una (February 2002), and Lulu (May 2004). Since the early 1990s, when not touring, BregoviÃÂ's primary residence has been in Paris, a city where he got married and his three daughters were born and raised. Additionally, he spends a lot of time in Belgrade, where he does most of his musical work. In a late-2000s interview, answering a question about where his home is, BregoviÃÂ stated: "If you define 'home' as the place where you keep your winter coat during summer and your swimming trunks during winter, then my home is my Paris apartment". His daughter Ema graduated from the in Nantes and became a conceptual artist.
On 12 June 2008, fifty-eight-year-old BregoviÃÂ sustained a spinal injury in Belgrade, breaking vertebrae by falling four meters from a cherry tree in the garden of his Senjak house. After being medically assessed, his condition was stated to be "stable without neurological complications." Following surgery, he made a quick recovery and, within a month, on 8 and 9 July, held two big concerts in New York City, proving for more than two hours each night his performance skills had not suffered from the accident.
In 1971, twenty-one-year-old BregoviÃÂâÂÂa student at the University of Sarajevo's Faculty of PhilosophyâÂÂgot accepted into the Yugoslav Communist League (SKJ), the only party in SFR Yugoslavia's political system.
Throughout the mid-to-late 1970s, by now a famous rock musician in SFR Yugoslavia, BregoviÃÂ often publicly expressed personal support for the communist ideology while underscoring importance of being active in the party.
In 1990âÂÂwith the dissolution of the SKJ and reinstatement of multi-party political system in YugoslaviaâÂÂBregoviàexpressed public support for Ante MarkoviÃÂ's Union of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia (SRSJ), a centre-left social-democrat political party opposing ethnic nationalism and advocating for reform of Yugoslav communism into liberal market capitalism. Furthermore, he actively participated in the party's election campaign ahead of the general elections in the SR Bosnia and Herzegovina constituent unit of SFR Yugoslavia, lending his celebrity and contributing to the campaign in creative capacity. Despite securing public support, endorsements, and even active campaign participation from many prominent public figures in SR Bosnia and Herzegovina such as Emir Kusturica, Nele KarajliÃÂ, Branko ÃÂuriÃÂ, etc., the party got only 8.9% of the total vote.
On 2 April 1999âÂÂa week into the NATO bombing of YugoslaviaâÂÂalongside Greek performers George Dalaras, Stavros Kouyioumtzis, and Alkistis Protopsalti as well as a number of others from different parts of the Balkans, Bregoviàplayed at an anti-war open-air concert at Thessaloniki's Aristotelous Square.
In the years following the Yugoslav Wars and breakup of Yugoslavia, Bregoviàhas described himself as Yugonostalgic. In 2009, he stated: "Yugoslavia is the intersection of so many worlds: Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim. With music, I don't have to represent anyone, except myself â because I speak the first language of the world, the one everyone understands: music."
BregoviÃÂ owns real estate all over the world, but divides most of his time between Belgrade, where he does most of his musical recording work, and Paris, where his spouse lives with their three daughters.
He reportedly owns properties in Paris, Istanbul, Belgrade, Zagreb, on Mount Jahorina, and Perast, many of which are used for commercial purposes such as touristic rentals, studio recording, and filming locations.
In Belgrade, BregoviÃÂ owns multiple properties in the upscale Senjak neighbourhood. Some of his Belgrade properties in the neighbourhoods of Senjak and Dedinje were leased out as shooting locations for Serbian television series ', ', and '.
BregoviÃÂ has frequently been accused of plagiarizing other performers' works, as well as republishing his own previously released material as new.
In the mid-2000s, French singer-songwriter Enrico Macias reportedly sued Bregoviàover BregoviÃÂ's song "In the Deathcar" off the Arizona Dream soundtrack album, claiming it plagiarized Macias' song "Solenzara". Media outlets in the Balkans reported in 2015 that the French court ruled in Macias' favour, ordering Bregoviàto pay Macias â¬1 million in damages.
In response, via a press release distributed to media outlets throughout the Balkans, BregoviÃÂ's representative Svetlana StruniÃÂ claimed that there never was a plagiarism court process against BregoviÃÂ in France.
In March 2015, BregoviÃÂ performed a concert in Crimea after it was annexed by Russia in the previous year. The following month, the Life Festival in OÃ ÂwiÃÂcim, Poland canceled an appearance by BregoviÃÂ, saying that his statements were "contrary to the values cherished by the Life Festival founders."
In August 2023, BregoviÃÂ was denied from entering Moldova on the grounds of his allegedly open support for the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine. He intended to play in a music festival in the country.
In April 2025, at the recommendation of Latvia's State Security Service (VDD), BregoviÃÂ has been put on the list of personae non gratae in Latvia, alongside Russian-Lithuanian singer Kristina OrbakaitÃÂ. According to the VDD, BregoviÃÂ has made several appearances in "occupied Crimea" since 2014 along with "frequently expressing his support for the aggressor Russia in public, while spreading discrediting messages against Western countries".
BregoviÃÂ responded to the accusations by stating he comes from "a city marked by war" and he "would never support any war or aggression".