About World of Sevdah

World of Sevdah

World of Sevdah is a project founded in year 2009 by Mirza Bašić, a Sevdah enthusiast and a musician who plays accordion and piano and every now and then tries to sing Sevdah … but still not well enough.

World of Sevdah aims to be the main online Sevdah and Bosnian cultural heritage spot in English language for the whole world, outlining the most important information about Sevdah, its performers, developments, events and traditions.

About the founder

Mirza has had much involvement in Sevdah at amateur level so far and has an aim of becoming more professional Sevdah performer.

He lead a group of amateur enthusiasts in the past from an adhoc fund raising performance at Lambeth Palace, to a grandious finale at Royal Opera House four years later.

Mirza’s previous Sevdah group also performed at: South Bank Festival (twice), Earl’s Court Festival, Museum of London (twice), Cecil Sharp House, various weddings, a few secondary schools in London, Family Mosaic Association and various other interesting social and cultural events throughout UK as well as Europe.

However, Mirza’s biggest contribution towards promoting Sevdah music so far has been his involvement in Anthony Minghella’s (Oscar winning director) last ever film ‘Breaking and Entering‘, where Mirza performed the song ‘Kad ja podjoh na Bembašu’ as an accordionist in the band along with his mum Nasiha Bašić and accomplished Bosnian musician and actor Dado Dzihan.

In the scene, which is towards the end of the film, Oscar winning actress Juliette Binoche sings along with Nasiha Basic who is in the role of the lead singer.

Ongoing activities

Mirza is spending as much of his spare time as possible devoted to practising and performing Sevdah in collaboration with various singers.

He does this all around running his own IT company and having a happy family, training his son Ernad to be a Sevdah lover, an accomplished listener, singer and musician in the future.

Mirza believes that Sevdah music is one of the biggest cultural treasures of Europe, and thinks that it should be preserved in its purest form as much as possible.

Mirza’s biggest obstacle in performing Sevdah music is the fact that he is still performing on an old 80-bass accordion, which has seen many better days.

He’s is now putting much of an effort into trying to raise funds to buy a new accordion.

If you are fan of World of Sevdah project, please consider donating some money towards a new accordion for World of Sevdah project.