Tamara Obrovac

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

Croatian folk music is the traditional music of Croatia’s diverse regions, shaped by centuries of life between the Adriatic coast, the Pannonian plains, and the Dinaric hinterland. It encompasses distinctive vocal practices (such as klapa, ojkanje, and ganga), regional dance tunes, and instrumental traditions featuring tamburica ensembles, bagpipes, sopile double-reeds, and the bowed gusle. Coastal Dalmatia is known for close-harmony, largely a cappella klapa singing and Mediterranean colors; inland Slavonia favors lively tamburica bands, bećarac couplets, and kolo circle dances; Istria and Kvarner preserve archaic modal systems (the Istrian scale) and piercing sopile timbres; and the Dinaric highlands cultivate epic gusle recitation and powerful, microtonal polyphony. Together, these strands form a living heritage that is communal, lyrical, and dance-driven, and today it thrives in festivals, village celebrations, and contemporary folk/ethno-fusion projects.

Istrian folk music is the traditional music of the Istrian peninsula, today largely in Croatia (with a smaller portion in Slovenia), best known for its distinctive two-part singing and playing in the so‑called Istrian scale. This hexatonic, narrow-interval modal system often features microtonal inflections and cadences that resolve to unison or the octave, producing a tense yet haunting sonority. Performances typically involve two voices singing "na tanko i na debelo" (literally "thin and thick"—a higher and a lower part) in close, sometimes rough parallel motion. Instrumental traditions include piercing double-reed shawms (sopile/sopela in Croatian; roženice in Slovenian Istria), the mih (a local bagpipe), dvojnice (double flute), and later the diatonic accordion. Dances such as the Istrian balun accompany this music, linking the vocal and instrumental styles to communal festive life. In 2009, UNESCO recognized "Two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale" as part of the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, underscoring both its antiquity and its vibrant, living tradition.