Risto Samardžiev

Risto Samardžiev is a Macedonian singer and songwriter, born in Skopje on 17 August 1964. He started making music at sixteen, and in 1981 he co-founded Cilindar, one of the first new wave bands in Macedonia, a group that mixed new wave with ska, 2 Tone and reggae and recorded songs and videos for Macedonian Radio-Television.

After Cilindar split in 1983 he formed Haos in Laos in 1984, a new wave and later pop-rock band he fronted. In 1987 he was invited to sing at Makfest, the country's biggest music festival, and the song he performed there, "Čili Vili", became a hit in Macedonia and opened his solo career as a pop singer.

From then on he worked on his own, appearing at festivals and also singing as the vocalist of Memorija.

Risto Samardžiev has won Makfest four times as a performer and has written songs for other singers. In 2009 he won the pop night of the Ohrid festival with "Za ljubov se pee do kraj", a duet with Vlatko Ilievski, and he has taken part several times in the Macedonian national selections for Eurovision.