Prijatelji

Prijatelji ("Friends") is a male vocal ensemble from Sarajevo, founded in 1957 and singing without a break ever since. Officially the Vokalni ansambl Prijatelji, it started out in the Miljenko Cvitković society and made its name in the University of Sarajevo's cultural society AKCUS "Seljo", to which it has belonged for more than half a century. Its repertoire ranges from evergreens and pop songs to old town songs, ballads and sevdalinke.

The group began like a klapa, singing elegies, ballads, starogradske and sevdalinke, and has always sung what its members love. Over the years about 40 singers have passed through it, while the core stayed together: at its 55th anniversary in 2012, first tenor Đorđe Malić, Vlatko Tvrtković "Braco" and bass Želimir Jovanović were still singing from the very first day, with Goran Gelineo joining a little later. That year the line-up spanned five generations, from 76 down to 28, with the tenors Miran Karabašić, Bruno Papišta and Elvir Solak, the youngest member Zvjezdan Živković and the leader, baritone Mario Katavić, who has led the ensemble for more than twenty years.

In the Yugoslav years Indexi, the other famous group of "Seljo", were the regular band behind Prijatelji on records and in concert and played on most of their pop recordings, and Davorin Popović sang "Fala" with them. Prijatelji recorded ten singles, two LPs, seven CDs and four cassettes, about 80 recordings for the Radio Sarajevo archive and many TV shows; the 1980 album Viju vjetri carries "Kad se sjetim mila dušo", "Dobro jutro moj delijo" and "Jesenje lišće". Their "Kad ja pođoh na Bentbašu" was included in the anthology of Bosnian sevdalinke, and "Zelena polja" is among their best-loved songs.

The ensemble has toured almost every country in Europe and every part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in 1979 it received the 6 April Award of the City of Sarajevo, besides a number of festival prizes. On 2 November 2017 it celebrated its 60th anniversary with a gala concert at the National Theatre in Sarajevo, and it still gives concerts.