Kralj Čačka will perform within the Podgrađe Booktown literary festival in Novi Sad, on the night of the opening of the literature week of the Kaleidoscope of Culture, on Saturday, 18 September, at 10:30 p.m. The venue is the Suburbium of the Petrovaradin Fortress on the main stage in Beogradska Street.
On this occasion, Kralj Čačka will perform as a jazz trio that will present the music of the iconic poet, singer-songwriter and painter in a slightly different way than the audience is used to. For the first time in Novi Sad, Nenad Marić will present several new songs that will soon be published in the collection of poems that is being prepared.
Nenad Marić or Kralj Čačka is a painter, poet and singer-songwriter born in Čačak, who has been living and working in Belgrade for several decades. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in 2004, and as a painter, he usually expresses himself through watercolors. As a poet, he published the collection of poems Na margini (Lom, 2016), and as a musician he released two albums (Zemlja snova and Spusti svetlost na put, which the listeners of Radio Belgrade 202 declared the best album of 2018).
Together with his brother Marko, he is the author of the original music for the films Poslednja avantura Kaktus Bate (2018) directed by Đorđe Marković and Realna priča (2019) directed by Gordan Kičić. He is the winner of the Strune od svetla Award for 2017, which is awarded for a special contribution to the affirmation of the poetic word in rock and blues.
His music is a mixture of jazz, blues, rock and roll and chanson. Žikica Simić said about the Kralj Čačka: ‘On the dangerous highway – across intersections and alongside roads – with a guitar over his shoulder, as a hero of good old movies, Kralj arrived on the rock scene. He brought with him wise, beautiful and bitter songs, in which sincerity and authenticity sharply oppose the depravity of this time.’
Fantastic writer Miljenko Jergović wrote in his review of the music and poetry of Kralj Čačka for Jutarnji list: ‘Spusti svetlost na put is one of the few most important music albums for the rest of the literate people, recorded southeast of Vienna in the last thirty years. Nenad Marić is a powerful poet.’
The fourth Kaleidoscope of Culture will be held from 2 September until 8 October 2021. During five weeks, this yearlong project of culture of togetherness that connects artists, cultural institutions, non-governmental organisations, citizens and visitors through various processes, will present five types of art. At the end of summer, the Kaleidoscope of Culture will present spaces and programmes throughout the city, promoting a unique image of the diversity of Novi Sad.
