By: Ekrem Dupanović, [email protected]
2Cellos on Friday and Ivo Pogorelić with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra on Saturday. It was too big of a dose of excitement and pleasure so I told Vedrana on Sunday over breakfast: “Let’s run away somewhere for five days to recuperate.”
I’m one of the few people who actually look forward to every Monday. Over the weekend, I make a plan and I can’t wait for Monday to start realizing it, full of optimism that the realization of the plan would bring me a lot of satisfaction. This is one of the few Mondays I don’t look forward to, or at least not now, immediately. If only the weekend could stretch, so the adrenaline could subside, and emotions calm down.
6,000 people at the 2Cellos concert in Skenderija. If you were to throw a match it wouldn’t reach the floor. That’s the Sarajevo which everyone loves. A great concert and an awesome audience. All went somewhat normal until the middle of the concert, when Dušan Kranjc sat on the drums. Then, Skenderija exploded. The audience jumped to their feet and only few of them returned to their seats until the end of the concert. Looking at Dušan and how he slammed on those drums, my hands started aching. When they started playing Satisfaction, a tear slipped down my cheek. I remembered how in 1966, in the room of the tenant board of the skyscraper in which I lived in at Koševo, Kemal Monteno taught us to dance Satisfaction. This was at a time when Kemo played and sang only for his friends. In the evening, about a dozen of us would gather on the stands of Koševo stadium, where Kemo lived with his parents because his father Valdi (Osvaldo) was a foreman at the stadium. He would bring his guitar and we would stay up until the late (or rather early) hours.
Concert of Ivo Pogorelić needs no explanation. He rarely performs with an orchestra, but this time he did with the Sarajevo Philharmonic under the baton of Samra Gulamović. Before the concert an incredible scene. The start was delayed for ten minutes. Entrances to the hall closed. The audience quietly waiting for the concert to begin. Musicians peeping behind the curtain, waiting to go to the scene where Ivo Pogorelić is sitting at the piano, in sneakers, jeans, sweatshirt and with a wool cap on his head, quietly playing. I ask Ninoslav Verber, organizer of the concert, what’s going on? “He’s warming up the piano,” Nino whispered. “He told me a minute ago: You know Mr. Verber, I have to warm up the instrument. Musicians come out, do the first part of the concert, and then I sit down to play. The piano by then must be warmed up.”
A magnificent concert. Pogorelić at his level, and the orchestra excellent as well. Maestro has proved it himself, when he twice hugged the conductor while the audience applauded standing. The great artist – who sometimes leaves the scene immediately after the show – again and again came back and bowed to the audience. “He’s very fond of Sarajevo,” commented Nino.
Sarajevo, 15 May, 2016.
