Vlado Kreslin

Vlado Kreslin is a Slovenian singer-songwriter and folk rock musician, born on 29 November 1953 in Beltinci in Prekmurje. He has brought the folk songs and the dialect of his home region back to life, and he has been called an ethno-revivalist for the way he modernised Slovenian folk songs.

He started out in 1970 as the drummer of the band Apollo, then sang with a string of groups: Špirit group in Murska Sobota in 1973, Zodiac, Izvir, Horizont in Ljubljana from 1975 to 1978, and Sanje and Avantura in 1979. In 1980 he won Slovenska popevka with "Dan neskončnih sanj".

In 1983 he joined the rock band Martin Krpan, which released the albums Od višine se zvrti (1986) and Bogovi in ovce (1988) and opened for Rory Gallagher, R.E.M., Michael Chapman and Bob Dylan before splitting up in 1991. With the guitarist Miro Tomassini he wrote songs of his own, and among the best known from that time is "Tista črna kitara".

From 1991 he played with older folk musicians from his village in the Beltinška banda, in which his father Milan also played. The solo album Namesto koga roža cveti (1991), Spominčice (1992) and Najlepša leta našega življenja (1993) with the Beltinška banda, and Nekega jutra, ko se zdani (1994) with the band Mali bogovi set off a real revival of Slovenian ethno music, and he later brought the two bands together. His song "Namesto koga roža cveti" inspired Feri Lainšček's book of the same name, and he acted in and wrote music for the film Halgato (1994).

He has gone on to release twenty-six albums of his own music, among them Pikapolonica (1996), Ptič (2000), Cesta (2007), Drevored (2010), Čarobnice (2013) and Kje si b'la doslej (2023), and he gives an annual concert at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana. He has also published poetry, including Vriskanje in jok (2003) and Pojezije (2009), and the novella Venci (2006) about the Beltinška banda.

He has worked with Siddharta, Zoran Predin, Gal Gjurin, Pero Lovšin, Vlatko Stefanovski, Parni valjak, the Dubliners and Senidah, among others. He received the Ježek Award in 2020 and the Zlata piščal for lifetime achievement in 2021, and in June 2022 the President of Slovenia awarded him the Order of Merit.