Modrijani

Modrijani are a Slovenian narodnozabavna band, active since 2000, who play folk-pop and popular music with five-part vocal harmonies. The group grew out of four young musicians from around Dobrna: the cousins Blaž Švab (vocals) and Rok Švab (accordion) and the brothers Peter Oset (guitar) and Franjo Oset (bass). When they started out as Modrijani, Blaž was 13 and Peter, the oldest, 18. In recent years Sergije Lugovski has added a further voice.

Their mentor in the early years was Brane Klavžar, who had taught Rok the accordion and heard the boys entertaining guests in a restaurant. He wrote their first songs, and Tine Lesjak of Ansambel Bratje iz Oplotnice and Franc Šegovc of Štirje kovači contributed more; later the band wrote its own material, mostly by Rok Švab. The festivals came quickly: the audience's first prize at Števerjan in 2002, the first audience prize and the Koren plaque for best vocal performance at the Ptuj festival in 2002, the Golden Dragon at Vurberk the same year, where "Spomin na pevca še živi" was voted best song by the radio stations, and best waltz at Slovenska polka in valček for "Ajda na polju" (2003) and "Neskončno zaljubljena" (2004). In 2005 they won the Ptuj audience prize again with "Ostani z menoj".

The band has released fourteen albums, most of them with sales awards, from Daleč je dom (2001) and the platinum Spomin na pevca še živi (2003) to Ti moja rožica (2012), Moja (2014) and Rock me (2017). "Ti moja rožica" became their best-known song, and they recorded a remix of it for its tenth anniversary.

Modrijani like to bring new ideas into folk music. For "Si srečna z mano" in 2016 they were the first to shoot a music video with a 360-degree camera, and they recorded "Moja" in Spanish as "Mia" with the Cuban musician Ariel Cubría. Their 2017 version of "Rock me", made with the permission of its author Hermann Weindorf, passed a million views in less than a month. They received the Viktor for popularity for 2012, 2013 and 2016.

They often record with other artists: Čuki on "Daj mi poljub", Elda Viler on "Klic srca", Natalija Verboten, Štirje kovači, and Jan Plestenjak with Zdenko Cotič - Coto on "En poljub" (2014) and "Kok' nam je luštn'" (2016). Many of these songs are gathered on the album Modrijani z gosti (2009).

Every year the band hosts its own concert, Noč Modrijanov, first held in 2003 at Dobrna. It moved to Celje's Golovec hall and later the Zlatorog hall, has been played on two nights since 2011, and in 2014 its 10,000 tickets went in three minutes. For their 25th year, two evenings at Ljubljana's Stožice arena sold out within hours.