Zvonko Kompes

• Born in 1949 in Pustike, a village 30 km away from Zagreb

• Spent his childhood in humble circumstances and difficult village life, walking for six kilometers to school every day

• His first contact with music and singing was in the earliest childhood years when songs and music served as means of escaping the harsh reality of everyday life. He started singing with his father who was famous locally for his beautiful voice

• His first public appearance was at the age of 7, performing with his school tamburitza orchestra

• At the age of 15, he applied to the Military Academy of Music, which was the only way to get an education due to financial restrictions. He graduated from the Academy completing the programs in the horn and the guitar.

• After graduation, he moved to Sarajevo where he played in the large military wind orchestra

• At the same time, as a vocal soloist, he sang with the National and Tamburitza Orchestras of Sarajevo Radio Television

• As a soloist, he has performed for many nationally and internationally important people of the time: Tito, Indira Gandhi, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Nasser, Sirimavo Bandaranaike…. as well as for many preeminent persons of social life: Richard Burton, Irena Papas, Elizabeth Taylor, Juan Antonio Samaranch...

• He has performed with many international orchestras (Royal Orchestra London, representative orchestras from France, Austria, US, and former USSR…)

• He has recorded for radio and television archives

• At the start of the war in Bosnia, he founded a new orchestra in Sarajevo. He was the second conductor and the solo voice of the orchestra

• In 1993, he returned to Pustike, his native village, and continued singing

• Since then, he has held numerous performances, especially as a vocal soloist and excellent interpreter of traditional songs from Eastern Europe, songs of the Slavic peoples