Dina Bušić 

Dina Bušić (Zadar, 1979) is a classically trained musician who earned her degree in Musicology from the Zagreb Academy of Music. She began singing actively from a very young age, performing for many years in choirs in Zadar and Zagreb, in klapas (traditional Dalmatian a cappella groups), and in folk ensembles—all while studying solo singing under Stojan Stojanov Ganchev.

Even during her years working as a music critic for Jutarnji List, teaching music in Zadar schools, serving as a music producer at the Croatian National Theater in Zadar, and later as Director of the Zadar Concert Office, singing remained the golden thread woven throughout Dina’s life. Her soprano voice, which she selflessly shared with the many musicians she collaborated with, is marked by lyrical softness, while her performances display a unique expressiveness colored by Mediterranean tones.

Her editorial and writing skills were sharpened as author and editor of musical monographs dedicated to the Zadar Chamber Orchestra and the Blagoje Bersa Music School in Zadar. She also contributed to numerous editions of Musical Evenings at St. Donat, the oldest festival in her hometown. With this experience, Dina confidently embraced the wide-ranging responsibilities of the project Nightingale – Forgotten Songs of the Zadar Arbanasi. In addition to singing the songs of her ancestors, she had recorded them during her student years, researched them as an ethnomusicologist, and ultimately shaped them into a unique whole in collaboration with musicians of similar sensibility: Melita Ivković, Edin Karamazov, and Miroslav Tadić.

A musician whose singing is just one of many layers within her artistic and intellectual profile, Dina is a passionate explorer of identity through music—especially when it comes to what is forgotten, hidden, or unknown.

Melita Ivković

Guitarist Melita Ivković (Zadar, 1976) was trained in classical music at the Music Academy in Zagreb in the class of Professor Ante Čagalj. Her particular combination of an inherent connection to classical music through composing and arranging, solo and chamber music performances, and frequent trips to world music, is what best describes Melita’s over two and a half decades of intense music-making. 

Melita’s artistic expression was largely shaped by her work with the Zagreb Guitar Quartet. In addition to having traveled the world with the ensemble from 1993 till today – performing in thirty countries on four continents – she was also the winner of international awards, released two albums, and produced a number of works by renowned contemporary composers. 

And yet, besides the classical, Melita’s musical experience shows layers of influences from other genres, some of which she became enamored with even as a student, such as rock, jazz, bossa nova … Being a classicist with an open mind, she welcomed all those influences into her world,