Goran Bregovic – Wedding & Funeral Band

The first time Goran Bregovic was in town, the Festival audience danced in the aisles, transported by his band of gypsies to a place of raucous delight. Armed with an electric guitar, the charismatic Bregovic returns to the Festival with his mainstay brass ensemble, the Wedding and Funeral Band, performing a repertoire of Balkan folk arrangements infused with musical ingredients of his own.

Having studied violin early on, Bregovic turned to the guitar and spent a decade and a half playing with the popular Yugoslavian band The White Button before tiring of rock stardom — though it has caught up with him again.

With film-score credits to his name, a foray into opera, and his 2002 album Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals, the Sarajevo-born Bregovic’ has got plenty to draw from, whether a dirge-like homage to his war-torn homeland or the raw blast of a brass-powered Balkan romp.