The masterful Sevdah interpreter Damir Imamović lights up a beautiful and poetic evening at St. John’s Church, where with exciting arrangements and a compelling emotional depth, he takes the Bosnian blues on new journeys with his quartet.

Note: The concert takes place in St. John’s Church. The concert is seated.

Damir Imamović is considered one of the foremost modern interpreters of the traditional Sevdah – often referred to as “Bosnian blues” due to its melancholic poetry. The word comes from the Turkish “sevda,” meaning love, which in turn originates from the Arabic “sawda,” meaning black bile. In Sevdah, Western and Eastern traditions merge, and the music is stretched between the poles of love and melancholy. Sevdah can be traced back to the Balkans of the 15th century, and Damir Imamović himself is the grandson of one of Sevdah music’s great legends, Zaim Imamović.

However, Damir Imamović is much more than just a successor to the tradition. This was evident when he played outstanding concerts at ALICE in 2018 with his band Sevdah Takht, where he managed to offer his own contemporary and personal take on Sevdah, and again in 2021, where with exciting arrangements, improvised passages, and a compelling emotional depth, he took the Bosnian blues on new journeys in collaboration with Derya Turkan and Greg Cohen. Additionally, Damir Imamović has engaged in numerous collaborations, including with Chris Eckman and Joe Boyd, and released albums on the iconic label Glitterbeat Records. When Imamović returns to Copenhagen in November, he will fill the beautiful St. John’s Church with a strong quartet featuring violinist Ivana Đurić, percussionist Nenad Kovačić, and bassist Ivan Mihajlović. Expect a beautiful, poetic, and melancholic concert that, based on the Sevdah tradition and imbued with soul and emotional depth, takes the Bosnian blues on new journeys.