Culture: Legendary band Leb i Sol holds concert in Bitola

12/07/2006

The Yugoslav-era jazz fusion group Leb i Sol reunited after a ten-year break and launched a regional tour. Also in culture news: Croats and Serbs honour Nikola Tesla, Brazil's Zico is selected to coach Turkey's Fenerbahce, and Bulgarian archaeologists discover an ancient settlement.

Leb i Sol members Kokan Dimusevski, Garabet Tavitjan, Bodan Arsovski and Vlatko Stefanovski. [Getty Images]

Leb i Sol, the most famous band in the former Yugoslavia, launched a regional tour with a concert in Bitola, Macedonia. Over 3,000 people gathered to watch virtuoso guitarist Vlatko Stefanovski and his bandmates -- Bodan Arsovski (bass guitar), Nikola Dimusevski (keyboards) and Garo Tavitijan (drums) -- play 25 of their greatest hits. Founded in the 1970s, Leb I Sol was known for its combination of rock, jazz-fusion and ethnic music. They won numerous awards at musical festivals in the 1970s and 1980s and were repeatedly chosen as best group of the year.

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Hundreds of Croats and Serbs put aside the differences to celebrate the 150th birthday of world-renowned scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, an ethnic Serb born in Croatia. The celebration was held in Tesla's home village of Smiljan, and was marked by the inauguration of a new multimedia centre. Officials said Tesla symbolised the shared past between the two countries; he once said he was equally proud of his Serb origin and Croatian homeland.

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Brazilian football maestro Zico will coach Turkey's Fenerbahce, according to an announcement by the Turkish club's management last week. Zico, the former coach of Japan's national team, will replace Germany's Christoph Daum, who stepped down for health reasons.

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The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles said it will return two significant artefacts to Greece -- a 6th century BC bas-relief from the norther Aegean island of Thassos and a 4th century inscribed stela from Viotia. Athens claimed that these two artefacts, along with a marble statue of a kore and a golden Macedonian wreath, had been taken out of the country illegally.

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Bulgarian archaeologists announced last week that they uncovered an ancient Thracian settlement dating back to the 5th century BC in the central Karlovo municipality. The excavation turned up a 3,000-year-old building with a decorated tiled roof that may have been the palace of the local ruler.

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The first collection of short stories by contemporary Albanian authors, translated into English, has been published in Great Britain under the title "Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood: Modern Albanian Short Stories". The 143-page anthology -- published by Northwestern University Press -- was compiled by Robert Elsie. It includes works by 11 authors: nine from Albania and one each from Kosovo and Macedonia.

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The 57th Dubrovnik summer festival opened on 10 July in Croatia. The programme includes over 80 theatre, ballet and opera performances, concerts, literary evenings and art exhibitions featuring participants from over 20 countries.

(Various sources – 05/07/06-12/07/06)