Community Music Sarajevo

In the winter of 1996 I was invited by London based The Serious Road Trip to be Percussionist in Residence with Community Music Sarajevo.

Between 1996 and 2000 I led and collaborated on what feels like a lifetime over 4 years of workshops with 1000’s of young people across Bosnia and Herzegovina

I trained 5 young musicians from Sarajevo into the art of delivering drum, percussion and song workshops.

We explored fusing West African, Balkan, Brazilian and Middle Eastern rhythms as starting points for making up our own creations and songs & collaborated with percussionist Oha & drummer Shuta in Mostar, together we created a platform for young percussionists to have rehearsals, composing ideas, leading to amazing experiences performing & travelling, great life long friendships were forged. Many of the players in Sarajevo & Mostar were involved, SDO (Sarajevo Drum Orchestra) was created and a few players became some of todays top professionals in BiH.

We worked as a team of workshop creative music making session all across community centers & special schools in Sarajevo on a weekly basis, including

Pazaric Psychiatric Hospital, Vladimir Nazor Special School, Mladi Most, Omladinske Centar, Joker Centre, Plavi Svjet Gorazde.

Many children had lost the best years of their lives and any notion of normal childhood development due to the outrageous and brutal 4 year siege of the capital…Music allowed a space to develop a sense of musical fun, self-esteem, dignity and community spirit, a free space to heal as well as develop musical skills, music as an art of humanity.

Most people were suffering from some kind of PTSD and I had the fortune to work with a very broad range of groups over 4 years of projects with youth groups; ex-child soldiers, orphans, special needs groups and young people all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. My outreach programme worked regularly in Mostar, Gorazde, Brcko, Travnik, Banja Luka, Brcko, and across various inter-entity programmes. 

I was honoured to be supported personally as friends and mentored musically by the great elders that are Eugene Skeef, Nigel Osborne, Simon Glinn & Bennett Hogg

I am the founder of the Sarajevo Drum Orchestra.

A vibrant drum and percussion group which performs a melting pot of West African, Brazilian and Balkan music as starting points. We got our set together and we toured Holland (twice!)playing in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, and played various cities and festivals in Italy, Sardinia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Republic of Georgia,

We performed at gigs, festivals and spontaneous happenings all over Bosnia & Hercegovina between 1997-2000. Stopping downtown Sarajevo traffic with our energetic drumming to highlight lack of wheelchair access on the new streets of post-war Sarajevo, collaborating and performing with Adi Lukovac & Ornamenti in the post-war sound scene 1996-2000 and playing amazing club nights at Sarajevo King Kong Jazz Cafe/Bar

The Sarajevo Drum Orchestra continues to have a busy schedule ever since and you can check out their instagram here

Anton "Tony Bongo" Pesikan 

During 1996-2000 Tony and I formed a wonderful, deep friendship and shared vision for drumming workshops improvisational styles and structured ideas/themes. Together we led 100's of wonderful workshops together So much music and especially drumming…

Tony has been actively working ever since as a Community Music practitioner across Bosnia and is positively respected as second to none in his field.         He continues to dedicate himself in challenging situations and places and has that hunger for new music that always generates a positive experience.

He currently leads creative music projects in Sarajevo Blind School & Orphanages, Srebrenica and special needs groups on the summer Balkan Music Camp in Croatia. Tony continues to teach, collaborate, perform with fellow musicians on the community music scene from Edinburgh to Tbilisi toand beyond. 

Community Music Sarajevo 1995-2000

Born of a defiant imagination of free & supported access to opportunities for quality music making, performing, recording, live gigs, broadcasting, workshops, drumming, singing…born of the likes of Simon Glinn, Nigel Osborne, Bennett Hogg,

CoMuSa generated much needed opportunities and a positive buzz amongst the many professionals who were instrumental and inspirational in achieving many musical, community and developmental outcomes within the immediate post war Bosnia music and community music scene. These included help setting up & performing at the  

First Sarajevo International Jazz Festival in 1997 with Fun^Da^Mental and The Dhol Foundation - Wow! This was the most fantastic 2 weeks of my 4 years in BiH.

Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. A collaboration Fire Dance performance for the opening ceremony in front of Brain Eno, Bono, Pavarotti, and the two years of the music projects at Mladi Most and Omladinski Centre WC sessions with the young people from ethnically divided lines in the community

Sarajevo Drum Orchestra Gig list highlights:

Sarajevo International Jazz Festival 1997 - Performance with Aki Nawaz & D from Fun^Da^Mental & Johnny Kalsi of The Dhol Foundation

Tour of Holland 1998 - 2 week tour of performances and workshops. Vibrant performances at night and soothing workshops and collaborations during the day in Asylum Seeker Centres - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven and Terscheilling Island

Hague Appeal for Peace 1999 - Sarajevo Drum Orchestra were part of a global movement of prominent musicians, artists and heads of state to perform and conduct workshops. We performed in front of Kofi Annan, the Queen of Jordan, Desmond Tutu and Sir Peter Ustinov. We also jammed & hung out with Hip Hop artist Mos Def and the Soweto Choir. Funded by War Child Netherlands,

Tabor, Czech Republic 1999 - 2 week residential festival of collaborative cross art forms. We performed and collaborated with many international musicians and made an amazing musical sculptural performance Serbian Sculpture Artist "Svetlana"

3rd UN Conference of the People 1999 - Perugia ITALY - Performance for international delegates from over 90 countries

Carnival March from Perugia to Assisi for 70,000 all day peace marchers - it was 24km! (we admittedly took a bus now and then!!) but walked up into Assisi playing Carnival fusion music!

Croatia, Obonjan Island - 2 week Summer Residential developing new compositions and rehearsing for tours

Banja Luka - Kastel Festival 1999 2 week BrazilianAfricanBalkan Fusion Drumming Project leading to group Performances as part of in clubs

 Most photos below by Max Reeves