Bilja Krstić & Bistrik Orchestra

Bilja Krstić & Bistrik Orchestra is the ethno music project of the Serbian singer Biljana "Bilja" Krstić, who was born on 9 November 1955 in Niš. With the Bistrik Orchestra she gives new arrangements to traditional songs from Serbia and the wider Balkans.

She started young: in 1972 she joined Bubamare from Leskovac, and after school she studied music in Belgrade. In 1975 she became one of the three singers of Suncokret, which released the album Moje bube in 1977. In 1978 she left with Bora Đorđević, later of Riblja Čorba, to join Rani Mraz, the group of Đorđe Balašević, and stayed until it split in 1981. Solo albums followed from 1983, and a children's album, Loptom do zvezda, in 1990.

Her ethno period began in 2000 with the album Bistrik, which won the Prince's award for ethno album of the year, as did Zapisi in 2003. Zapisi and Tarpoš also won the Beovizija award for best ethno album, and the British magazine Songlines put Tarpoš among the ten best albums of 2007. A live video album recorded at the Terazije Theatre on 27 November 2007 came out in 2008. Izvorište, an a cappella album with Dimitrije "Mikan" Obradović, followed in 2013, Svod on ARC Music in 2017 and Biljur on Croatia Records in 2023.

She has written music for film and television, including Zona Zamfirova (2002), which won best score at the Herceg Novi film festival, and The Man Who Defended Gavrilo Princip (2015), scored with Dragomir Stanojević. In 2018 Bilja Krstić received a lifetime achievement award, and in November 2025 she marked fifty years on stage with a concert at the MTS Dvorana in Belgrade.