Lidija Percan

Lidija Percan is a Croatian singer from Istria, best known for traditional songs in Italian and the Istro-Venetian dialect, in which she sang of Istria and the Kvarner, their customs, people and towns. She was born in Rakalj, recited the poems of her fellow villager Mate Balota as a schoolgirl and got her first singing experience in the village's parish church; her voice and her musicality came from her mother Roža.

After the move to Pula she began, at fifteen, to sing pop songs with bands on summer terraces. Together with her friend Radojka Šverko she took singing lessons from Marija Bunčuga, who saw future opera singers in them, but both went another way. The Jugoton label, keen to win the Istrian and coastal market, soon recorded her first single with four songs, and fifteen more singles followed.

Her real breakthrough came through her work with composer Đorđe Novković. His songs "Hiljadu suza za jednog mornara" and "Sve su se laste vratile s juga" carried her career abroad, as far as the United States, Canada and Australia, and were followed by "Mornare lipi moj", "Budi sretan, sine moj", "Zvala sam te da se vratiš" and "Jesen u vrtu mom". With Novković and arranger and producer Stipica Kalogjera her records and cassettes sold in record numbers. In all she recorded 16 singles and 12 LPs, and three CDs of her best songs have been released.

She sang at the Melodije Istre i Kvarnera festival from 1966 to 2010, with songs such as "Pelinčica", "Težak" and "Nonica", and at the Split and Zagreb festivals and Arena fest; in Split she sang "Mene prose momka dva" in 1981 and "U mojim pjesmama" in 1985. Her duets include "Ritorno a Parenzo" with Voljen Grbac, "Primorska noć" with Mladen Grdović, with words by Livio Morosin, and "Istra, mati moja" with Alen Vitasović.

After her success with Novković she turned to collecting and singing the old Istrian town songs, the canzoni, and with Kalogjera she recorded eight LPs of them in the Istro-Venetian dialect, among them Canzoni d'una volta. Songs such as "La mula de Parenzo" and "La bella campagnola" became hits across Yugoslavia, and she also sang in New York in 1972 and in the Soviet Union. In 2019 Lidija Percan received the Order of the Croatian Interlace. The playlist is her Topic channel, with her Croatian songs and the Italian canzoni side by side.