Donna Ares

Donna Ares was a Bosnian pop-folk singer, songwriter and musician from Bihać who was called the "Queen of the Balkan Party". She was born Azra Kolaković on 1 January 1977 in Bihać and died there on 2 October 2017, aged 40.

Music came from home: her mother, Ajka, taught piano at a music school, and her father, Osman Kolaković, was a pop-rock guitarist. Besides singing she played piano, keyboards and guitar, and she also painted and worked as a graphic and web designer and as a director of music videos. At 15 she joined the group Camino Verde, which she left in 1996.

Her first public appearance as Donna Ares came at Dora 1997, the Croatian selection for Eurovision, where she finished 12th with "Zadnja noć". Her first studio album, Ti me više ne voliš, followed in 1998, and after it Čuvaj se, dušo, ja sam tatin sin (2002), Jackpot (2004), Nemam razloga za strah (2006), Fantastična (2009) and Povratka nema (2011), along with three Live Mix albums, the second of them named after her hit "Sviraj nešto narodno". Her records came out on Sani Records, Nimfa Sound, InTakt Records, Hayat Production and Grand Production.

Her best-known songs include "Sviraj nešto narodno" with Halid Bešlić, "Ubila me tvoja nevjera", "To mi nije trebalo", "Idi, idi moja vilo" and "Suze moje plaču za oboje". She sang "Ove godine" with Šerif Konjević and "Obala suza" with Derviš Eljazović, recorded "Žena zmaj" and "Kreni! (Maslačak)" with the rapper MC Sjena, and "Ko je jači" with Soda Band. Her 2006 album Nemam razloga za strah included "Prijateljica", written by Armin Šaković. For nearly twenty years she lived and worked in Bihać with the musician Džavid Ljubovci, who played in her band and arranged her songs.

In October 2014 she was diagnosed with cancer. She published an autobiography, Soba za nikoga, in 2015, started the Donna Ares Foundation that February and gave a charity concert at the Zetra Olympic Hall in Sarajevo on 16 April 2015, released as the live album Donna Ares & Prijatelji. She was buried at the Humci cemetery in Bihać beside her father.