Goran Bregović (born 22 March 1950) is a recording artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is one of the most internationally known modern musicians and composers of the Slavic-speaking countries in the Balkans, and is one of the few former Yugoslav musicians who has performed at major international venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall and L'Olympia.
A Sarajevo native, Bregović started out with Kodeksi and Jutro, but rose to prominence as the main creative mind and lead guitarist of Bijelo Dugme, widely considered one of the most popular and influential recording acts ever to exist in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After Bijelo Dugme split up, he embarked on several critically and commercially successful projects, and started composing film scores. Among his better known film scores are three of Emir Kusturica's films (Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream and Underground). For Time of the Gypsies, Bregović won a Golden Arena Award at the Pula Film Festival in 1990, among other awards. He had also composed for the Academy Award-nominated film La Reine Margot and the Cannes-entered film The Serpent's Kiss.
Bregović, during his five-decade long career, has composed for critically acclaimed singers, including Sezen Aksu, Kayah, Iggy Pop, Šaban Bajramović, George Dalaras and Cesária Évora.
Born in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia-Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to a Croatian father Franjo Bregović and Serbian mother Borka Perišić, Goran grew up with two younger siblings — sister Dajana and brother Predrag. Their father was from the Croatian region of Prigorje, specifically Sveti Petar Čvrstec village near Križevci, while their mother was born in Virovitica to parents that had shortly before her birth arrived in the nearby village of Čemernica, settling there from the village of Kazanci near Gacko in East Herzegovina. Goran's maternal grandfather fought in the Royal Serbian Army at the Salonica front during World War I and as a reward received land in Slavonia where he soon moved his family.