Ansambel bratov Avsenik

Ansambel bratov Avsenik, the Avsenik Brothers Ensemble, was a Slovenian folk band led by accordionist and composer Slavko Avsenik and his brother Vilko Ovsenik, who arranged the music and played clarinet in the early years. Active from 1953 to 1990, it is described by Slovenian Wikipedia as probably the most successful Slovenian music group in the world, and it is widely seen as the founder of a new genre of folk-pop music in Central Europe, known in German-speaking countries as Oberkrainer music.

It began in 1953, when Slavko passed an audition at Radio Ljubljana. He first played alone, then formed a trio with Lev Ponikvar on guitar and Jože Kelbl on bass, which grew into the Gorenjski kvartet when trumpeter Franc Košir and baritone player Franc Ogrizek joined. The singers Danica Filiplič and Franc Koren followed, and by 1955 the line-up had settled as the Gorenjski kvintet, soon the Avsenik Brothers Ensemble. That year a broadcast on Radio Klagenfurt reached Bavarian radio editor Fred Rauch, who played their recordings and named them the Oberkrainer Quintett. A contract with Telefunken followed, and "Na Golici", known in German as "Trompetenecho", made them famous across Europe.

Abroad they recorded for Telefunken/Teldec, at home mainly for Jugoton and later Helidon, releasing around 120 records and cassettes in more than 30 million copies and some 670 songs in all. They went professional in 1960, played the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, received their first gold record in Hamburg that year, and toured the United States and Canada in 1970 and again in 1985. By 1989 there were 150 fan clubs abroad.

The singers changed over the decades: Ema Prodnik replaced Danica Filiplič in 1961, and in 1974 Franc Koren left and alto Jožica Svete and baritone Alfi Nipič joined, followed in 1982 by Joži Kališnik. The ensemble collected 31 gold records, a diamond and a platinum one, a European award for originality in 1975 and a golden rose in Vienna in 1979 as the most played group on Austrian radio.

Besides "Na Golici", their best-loved songs include "Na mostu", "Tam kjer murke cveto" (1957), "Slovenija, od kod lepote tvoje" (1974) and "Samo enkrat imaš petdeset let" (1981); Ivan Sivec wrote about 70 of their lyrics. With Slavko's health failing, the ensemble ended in June 1990. The tradition lives on in Gašperji and in Slavko's grandson's Ansambel Saša Avsenika, and a museum collection in Begunje na Gorenjskem is devoted to the band.