Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar

All Ages / 21+ to drink
Doors at 7pm || $16 advance / $20 day-of-show

Boban Markovic was born on May 6th, 1964, on the day of Saint George – the most important Gypsy festival day of the year – in Vladicin Han (South Serbia). His hometown is a town of 10,000 people, most of Roma Gypsy heritage who share a rich musical tradition.

Boban's father, Dragutin, was a musician, as were both of his grandfathers. Boban's mother, Julka, used to remind him that he should strive to play as well as her own father. He got his first trumpet when he was 5 years old, and his father had a serious talk with Boban when he was 10 to tell him that his destiny was to be a trumpet player.

Thus, Boban started to play at his father's concerts and the marriages where the orchestra performed. He was obliged to play until he was exhausted. Boban began playing professionally in an orchestra at the age of 16, and he founded his own orchestra at 20. Boban Markovic was then ready to compete at the Guca festival, located in a small town in central Serbia with only 3,000 inhabitants. The town has been organizing the most important brass band competition in Former Yugoslavia every year since 1961. Boban won the "first trumpet" in 1988, and has gone on to win 5 more times until his last participation in 2001. In 1995 Boban received the "Trumpet Maestro Prize", the most valuable recognition that a brass musician can aim for in the Balkans, and in 2006 he was nominated "Ambassador of the Guca Competition," becoming one of the most important personalities in Balkan brass band music.

Boban Markovic has earned a great reputation not only in Serbia, but around the world. Award-winning film director Emir Kusturica and the most famous Balkan composer Goran Bregovic invited him to record the music for the soundtrack of the movies "Underground" and "Arizona Dream." The British magazine SongLines listed him as the only trumpet player on their list 50 all-time best instrumentalists in the world.

Boban's talent is due not to formal musical studies, but to the internal sense of rhythm that he possesses, as well as his passion and self- taught skills. Since 1999, he and his orchestra (which includes his son Marko, who joined in 2002) have performed all over Europe, the U.S., Turkey and Israel. They released a half-dozen albums on Piranha Musik and a split record with Romanian gypsy-brass heroes Fanfare Ciocarlia on Asphalt Tango. They have collaborated with Frank London of the Klezmatics (in Brotherhood of Brass) and with Austrian accordion/drum duo Attwenger. Both Boban and Marko are featured in the 2005 movie "Usti Opre", a documentary with other famous Gypsy musicians, and also in "Guca", a documentary about the Serbian trumpet festival.