Ivica Pepelko

Ivica Pepelko is a Croatian singer, composer and poet, and one of the best-known authors of kajkavian popevke, the popular songs of Hrvatsko zagorje. He was born on 24 October 1944 in Bistrinci near Belišće in Slavonia and has lived in Zagorje since 1952, first in Budinščina and Konjščina; in 2003 he moved to Varaždin. He went to primary school in Budinščina and to a secondary school of economics in Zabok, and graduated from the Higher School of Economics in Zagreb in 1965.

An economist by profession, he worked for several Zagorje companies, was chief editor of the Zlatar municipal paper Naša komuna from 1972 to 1980, and reported for Glas Hrvatskoga zagorja, Večernji list and Vjesnik. He also hosted entertainment programmes on local radio and television.

As a musician he is self-taught. He took up music seriously in 1969, when he founded the ensemble Lepi dečki in Konjščina and wrote all of its songs; the group was popular and stayed active until 1983, and its greatest hits were collected on Najlepše popevke (1998). In 1997 he co-founded the Zagorje festival Krijesnice and was its artistic director for five years, and he has sung at the Festival of Kajkavian Songs in Krapina since 2000, in 2004 and 2008 with Gordana Ivanjek.

He has written the music and words for several hundred songs, and the Croatian Composers' Society describes him as the first kajkavian artist to receive a platinum record. His solo albums include 35 let s popevkom za Zagorje (2004), Rane 90-e (2007), Bit' će bolje (2009), Čuvajte nam uspomene (2012), Fala Ti Bože za ovaj dan (2012), Zagorje vu meni (2014), Domačija (2015), Sveta zemlja Hrvatska (2016) and Dajte mi vina (2020). He also wrote the music for a Canadian feature film based on Janko Matko's novel Moć zemlje.

Ivica Pepelko published the song collection Kaj vu duši in 2009, in 3,000 copies that sold out quickly, and co-founded the Croatian Zagorje Literary Society in Klanjec. He paints in oils, with about 150 of his paintings now in many countries, mostly with emigrants, and makes wooden sculptures. Until 2013 he was president of the First Croatian Association of Parents of Children with Oncological Diseases at KBC Rebro, of which he is now an honorary member, and he has organised humanitarian concerts. Among his best-known songs are "Kad procvatu jabuke", "Kada dođe mjesec maj", "Rane 90-e", "Čuvajte nam uspomene", "Fala ti Bože za ovaj dan" and "Ljubice male".