Damir Imamović

Damir Imamović (1978) is one of the most important sevdah performers today and a man who brought a new artistic spirit to the traditional music of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His appearance on the music scene in 2005 produced a new wave of interest in sevdah, but also an innovative view of this form. He has been called the 'revolutionary of sevdah' (sevdalinkas.com), 'the new direction in sevdah' (fRoots), and even 'the king of sevdah' (The Huffington Post). Born in the family of Sevdali bards Đula, Zaim and Nedžad Imamović, Damir comes into contact with sevdah early on and acquires a point of view that will help him to follow his own path later. About Damir's understanding of sevdah, Marina Andrea Škop recorded the internationally awarded documentary film 'Sevdah'. The importance of Damir's approach to the tradition of sevdah is confirmed by him being selected for some of the most important international music festivals such as Druga godba (Ljubljana), Balkan Trafik (Brussels), TFF (Rudolstadt), Jazz Fest Sarajevo, as well as collaborations with Jadranka Stojaković, Vlatko Stefanovski , Bojan Zulfikarpašić, Eric Vloimenas, Greg Cohen, Derya Turkan and others. In cooperation with saz crafter Ćamil Metiljević and guitar crafter Luka Zaletelj, Damir produced the idea of a new instrument that represents a combination of saz and guitar. The new Sevdali instrument was named 'tambur'. At the end of 2015, Damir's Sevdali activism was crowned with a large multimedia exhibition 'Sevdah, the art of freedom'. The exhibition presented a dynamic genre with a rich history and collected not only Damir's research, but also the research of other important researchers of the genre. Based on this, Damir's book "Sevdah" (Vrijeme, 2016) was published, and soon became a basic popular reading for the history of sevdah. Damir Imamović is the author of seven albums from the area of sevdalinka in the period 2006-2020. His last album "Singer of Tales" (Wrasse Records, 2020) was included in the top ten albums in Europe by Transglobal World Music list. Also, Damir is the winner of prestigious awards such as the quarterly award of the German Association of Music Critics (2020) and the award for the Best European World Music Artist awarded to him by the most circulated magazine in the field of World Music Songlines (2021).

Photo © Edvin Kalić