Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamara Jokic.
Tamara, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I was born in Valjevo, Serbia, a small town in a small country that has big stories, nice people and a rich history.
I started doing music at the age of six when I performed as a singer for the first time. From then on, my passion for music, sung and spoken word developed, and I started learning a lot about my culture and the Southern cultures of Europe: mainly the Mediterranean.
I went to college in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where I lived for seven years while studying Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature.
Belgrade is a very romantic and unique city that lies on the River Danube, a river that can tell us the secrets of the entire European continent and share the stories of many nations.
After two years of living in Belgrade, I moved to Andalucía, Spain and explored the Spanish culture, music, language, and spirit. This enriched me a lot as a musician and as a person, and I think that it affected me in a very sublime way, almost spiritual. Not many things can enchant you as much as Sierra Nevada, Alhambra, an architecture of Cádiz, and streets of Granada. This influenced and awakened the relentlessly persistent artist in me and made me, partly, who I am today.
After this Spanish love story, I went to Lisbon, Portugal and reminded myself why I love fado and Portuguese culture. Later on, I went back to Belgrade, got my BA and MA degree and decided it is time that I auditioned for Berklee College of Music here in Boston.
What a perfect place for me! Here I found all the cultures, poetry, music, melodies and people in one place and thrived as an artist. I feel that I am still thriving and growing, as we all are. I have been here since 2017, and it has been a very important part of my life.
I am a vocalist, devoted to world music as a genre, mainly from the spaces of the Mediterranean and Balkan, I perform traditional music and I write my own. That would be the briefest layout of my artistic pursuits at this very moment.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am a singer, a vocalist, a songwriter.
When it comes to genre, I am very devoted to World Music from the Mediterranean – Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), Balkans, Middle East, etc.
I have always been in love with languages, poetry, and literature and the multiculturalism, pluralism of musical and linguistic heritages in music has always been my drive. In other words, I sing and write in many languages and that is what keeps me alive as an artist – and sometimes as a person! 🙂
The message and/or the inspiration, from my point of view, always comes from stories. Storytelling and the emotional message of the music I am doing are a number one priority when it comes to performing. And, oh, how many stories there are, and how many of them are brilliant and beautifully disquieting!
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
The most important advice would be: don’t compare yourself with others. It ruins creativity and it puts you in a place that doesn’t allow you to discover all layers of yourself as an artist and as a human being.
Understand competition as an inspiration, as a drive and desire to be better and grow every step of the way, but not as something inhibiting or crippling.
Those are the lessons I wish I learned a bit earlier.
Do you have any events coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My upcoming performance would be on Feb 26th at 7:30pm at David Friend Recital Hall on 921 Boylston street. It is a solo concert where I will be presenting some original and folk music from the Balkans and the Mediterranean.
Facebook page: Tamara Jokic
Instagram: @jokictamara
YouTube: Tamara Jokic
Contact Info:
- Email: tamara.jokkic@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jokictamara/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TamaraJokicMusic/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOENbQOUEEQ
Image Credit:
Jana Mitrovic, Djordje Djokovic, Sanja Karic, Bojana Djuric
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