Gal Gjurin

Gal Gjurin, also known as Gal George or Gal George Gjurin, is a Slovenian musician, singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, publisher, poet and writer, born on 12 November 1978 in Ljubljana. His music runs from songwriting through jazz, free improvisation, orchestral and chamber music, tango, chanson and ethno to garage punk and rock, and his own songs are mostly personal and confessional.

Soon after he was born the family moved to Kansas, where his father, the linguist Velimir Gjurin, had a professorship, and he later spent part of his childhood and teens with his grandparents in Oshawa, east of Toronto in Canada. He wrote his first little piano piece at six. Back in Ljubljana he studied Slovene and the sociology of culture, ran the music programme of the jazz club Franky's bar, and played bass in the jazz-blues collective El-džabl-džejna. His sister is the singer Severa Gjurin, his most frequent musical partner.

Between 1993 and 2008 he led a long row of groups, from the punk bands Pogojno užitni and Adivaljaver to the literary-musical Projekt Mesto, the genre-mixing Olivija and his backing band, Galeristi. In 2002 his first poetry collection, Mesto, was nominated for best debut book. By 2020 he had released seventeen albums, among them Mesto (2002), Olivija's Med moškim in žensko (2004), whose "Kadar sva sama" is sung by Severa, Fetiš (2007) with Galeristi, Srce (2008), the double Duša in telo (2012), Cantabile (2014) with a symphony orchestra and C (2020). "Brez sramu in brez strahu" won an award at the Festival slovenskega šansona in 2005.

In 2010 Gjurin wrote, produced and sang "Črni konji čez nebo" at EMA together with Matevž Šalehar - Hamo of Hamo & Tribute 2 Love, and it became the most played song by a Slovenian author on the national radio stations that year. Radio listeners also know him for "Kaj vse bi dal", "Čas bo na moji strani", "Knjiga obrazov", "Dva, ki ležita", "Sneg", "Srce" and "Nariši nov dan".

Since 2007 he has been a key figure behind ten albums of Vlado Kreslin, as co-writer, arranger, player and producer of songs such as "Z Goričkega v Piran", "Cesta" and "Abel in Kajn". In 2009 he founded his own label, Diskografska hiša HAD, and in 2018 OSH Publishing Canada, working from studios in Ljubljana and Oshawa.

Over the years he has worked with Josipa Lisac, Kemal Monteno, Massimo Savić, Neno Belan, Rade Šerbedžija, Mary Coughlan and the bassist Reggie Workman, and at home with Elda Viler, Tomi Meglič of Siddharta, Jan Plestenjak and Dan D.