Iztok Mlakar

Iztok Mlakar is a Slovenian singer-songwriter, theatre actor and playwright, born on 21 June 1961 in Postojna. He grew up in Nova Gorica on the Italian border, and his parents came from Cerkno. Often called the bard of the Slovenian Littoral, he is best known for ironic, warm and sometimes mischievous chansons sung not in standard Slovene but in the dialects of the Gorizia area, and a few in the Cerkno dialect of his parents. Together with Adi Smolar, he counts among the best-known Slovenian singer-songwriters since 1990.

After the grammar school in Nova Gorica, where he already acted in the drama group, he studied acting at the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana and graduated in 1986. As a young man he played in the group Stibor. Since the 1984/1985 season he has been a permanent member of the Slovenian National Theatre in Nova Gorica, and he has written many songs for the stage.

His first cassette, Štorije in baldorije, came out in 1990, with the CD two years later; it carried "Vandima", "Puntarska", "Karlo Špacapan" and "Pubi, usidma se". Balade in štroncade followed in 1994 with "Soča" and "Politik Gvido", Rimarije iz oštarije in 2001 with "Ivo Balila", "Čikorija an' kafe" and "Briškula", Romance brez krjance in 2008 and Porkaeva! in 2017, with "Kontrabas", "Čuoja" and "Šuolni". In 2019 he recorded an album with the accordionist Marko Hatlak and Funtango. All of his records sold very well.

His songs are about love, passing time and death, about wine and good home cooking, and about the little man who stubbornly survives wars, changing regimes and hard times. Many of the early ones poke fun at everyday life in late socialist Yugoslavia, and later ones at alcoholism, drugs and the newly rich.

Mlakar rarely performs and avoids big concerts, preferring small audiences with food and wine, where people sing along; tickets for his evenings are hard to get. He also wrote the text and music of the comedies Duohtar pod mus! (2006), which passed 200 performances across Slovenia, Sljehrnik (2011) and Pašjon (2015). He received the Ježek Award in 1993, a Viktor for special achievement for 2003, the Prešeren Fund Award in 2012 and the Zlata piščal for lifetime achievement in 2018.