The Beginning - one small song
A lot of my song writing is triggered by real events, . Just like ‘The Ice Suite’ was started by reading an article in the newspaper so the song and the project that became known as ‘Memories of Sarajevo’ was inspired by reading an account of the last moments of two Bosnian lovers known as Bosko and Admira who were shot by a sniper as they tried to flee the war torn city of Bosnia.
I wrote a simple folk type song that could be performed with just guitar and may be cello.
I remember when I first performed it at a local folk club, some people had tears in their eyes. We had just acquired a home computer, a laptop that connected at the breathtaking speed of 56kbps.
I had also been working in community radio at Bay FM for a couple of years at this stage and wondered if there was a community radio station over there in Bosnia that would play this song. I think I was just wanting to show a feeble solidarity with the desperate situation there, to let them know that some people cared about what they were going through. Because, until Bosko and Admira were shot (and that happened over 18months before I read the account in the paper) the world was virtually turning a blind eye to the misery and horror that was the Bosnian war.
A web search turned up Radio Zid, a community radio station in Bosnia. Little did I know that was a small miracle in itself, as Radio Zid was extraordinarily progressive in even having a web presence. I found a contact called Marica Bender and sent her an email explaining who I was and she readily agreed to accept the cassette and play it. ( Yes, I know – Cassette! No CDs at this time!) The version I sent her was of me playing guitar and Natalie Lenin on cello. As it was on cassette I have lost the original but I have turned up another rehearsal tape of me and Natalie playing this so this is as close as I can put in here.
Memories of Sarajevo – original version of song
Marica also sent quite a bit of info on who Radio Zid were and what they had been doing through the war. The stark contrast between Radio Zid and Bay FM – where their presenters risked their lives daily to even get to the station, where despite daily bombings they kept the community informed ( when they could get electricity) and educated, and helped to lift people’s spirits simply because they saw it as their community duty – compelled me to ask Marica if there was anything they could do with at the station. She replied they always needed more music. So I quickly put out a call via media to local musicians to donate one of their CDs and we sent a boxful of music and other small objects to the address Marica gave us. She in turn sent us some stunning CDs that that Bosnian musicians had produced in the city in basements and cellars, with erratic power connections, and also some copies of two concerts that were staged in the city by overseas artists just at the end of the war.
We began discussing the idea of a ‘culture swap of musicians and then I lost contact with Marica and could get no response to emails and searches. I began to believe the station had finally succumbed to bombing and regretfully moved onto other things.
Thinking about the Radio Zid story and their bravery I did a new production of the song with Colleen de Winton when we were com.passion. This was produced with the idea that the song would form the basis for a stage show. I wrote a ‘Part two’ and added it to the original to fit in with our ideas for this production. Again this is a rough and unmastered as Colleen and I parted ways before I could do a finished version!
Memories of Sarajevo -Part one and two.
Meeting Sabina.
Twenty years passed. A lifetime really. But I always thought of the brave presenters of Radio Zid and wondered about their fate. One day a chance conversation with Bay FM production manager William Martin about the role of community radio set me back on this path of wondering what had happened to them. I realised there were now a lot of Bosnian refugees in Australia and maybe some of them could provide some clues to the station’s fate. After a few abortive attempts to contact the right people led to nowhere , fate sent me Nadya Giga, in town to promote her 101 Candles Orchestra performance. Nadya is a respected ethnic singer and songwriter who can sing in many languages and I knew the ethnic music scene was very interwoven.
She told her mother back in Sydney what I was looking for and her mother emailed me a contact : Sabina Krusevljanin. We flew to Sydney and went straight to Sabina’s modest apartment and emerged hours later with an extraordinary start to what became the documentary series also called ‘Memories of Sarajevo;. Everything that eventuated from this meeting is down to Sabina’s bravery and honesty in recounting her story, then connecting me to others in the Bosnian Community.
Memories of Sarajevo - Radio Zid
When I stated on this project I thought it might be a six part series of half hour episodes- but instead it finished up being 3 one hour episodes because I could see how the story was falling into three distinct stages.
The first episode ‘Memories of Sarajevo – Radio Zid’ concentrated on unearthing and recounting the incredible story of Radio station Zid – I should say at this point that I was very fortunate to have three other collaborators on this project – my partner Peter who downloaded pages of research , Deb Sharp who trawled social media and found former presenters of the station and other interesting facts, and co-producer William Martin. Every week for nearly 5 months William and I would get together at Bay FM studios and record the script I had written after I had collated all our research and reformed it into a deliverable monologue. William also found sound effects and did post production and provided endless encouragement just through his sheer enthusiasm.
Memories of Sarajevo - The Myths and the Legends
The Bosnian war was a grim genocide, and one that was painful for the people I interviewed to recount. But my story was not about the war , it was about how people find ways to make life bearable when it is unbearable, and one of those ways is through art – the series is really about the power of art to help people endure.
The second episode’ Memories of Sarajevo – the Myths and the legends’ was about the many artists who had felt inspired to write songs, make films, perform or otherwise protest artistically what was happening to them . I included my song in this episode- the song that had started it all, and found many other songs about the same incident. This episode also made use of some of the recordings Marica Bender had sent me long ago.
Memories of Sarajevo - Singing a new Song
‘Memories of Sarajevo – Singing a new song’ contains many more of the interviews I recorded of Bosnian refugees who came to Australia. These were all women, it seemed men in the community were reluctant to speak for many cultural and historical reasons. They are all also members of the The Blue River Choir, a choir formed specifically to keep the musical choral culture of Bosnia alive and run by another wonderful woman – Sladjana Hozic in Sydney.
Afterwards
These three one hour episodes are filled with music. Though many of the stories are heartbreaking they are also uplifting. When I started making this I had no real idea where it would end up. William was keen to put the first episode which concentrates on Radio Zid into the Community Broadcasting Awards where it won the ‘Spoken Word’ Documentary’ section.
Acting upon a suggestion to me that night , I entered it into the New York Festival World’s Best Radio Awards. Where it won Bronze. Considering I was up against major world radio stations like the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting, Radio National Australia and 350 others I was pretty amazed . Prize winners are invited to be on the jury for subsequent years and I have done this three years running as I get to hear incredible radio programs from all over the world. The third episode’ Singing a new Song’ was also awarded a second ( Honourable Mention) in the International Women of Radio and Television Awards.
As we couldn’t go to New York to be at the awards ceremony, they allowed us an ‘acceptance’ video which is here below.
Back to the song
For the second episode I wanted to rerecord my original song and I asked my friend the beautiful Parissa Bouas to sing it for me. I also asked Ken and Cye to add some violin and piano snatches and I produced this into a new version.
Memories of Sarajevo New Version with Parissa Bouas
And the video
This video, made to accompany the song, also allowed me to use some of the tragic and extraordinary war footage shot by brave men and women stationed in Sarajevo during the war. Most of these photos had no attribution and were posted by journalists to draw attention to the drama unfolding in this beleaguered nation. A big thank you to those men and women and I hope you don’t mind me using them.