About
Dalibor Grubačević is an award-winning Croatian composer of film, classical and pop music. He has received several major professional awards in his country (the 2013 Porin in the Best Theatrical, Film, and/or TV Soundtrack category, for his music for the documentary series In Search of Marco Polo, and the Best Film Music award at the 19th Days of Croatian Cinema festival, for his music for the Nenad Puhovski documentary (Together). He is also a multifaceted artist of eclectic musical interests, whose work is best described by the contradictory label of an “unclassical classicist.” In his composition, he uses classical orchestration combined with electronic sounds and instrumentation. He is a full member of the Croatian Composers’ Society (HDS).
Beside film scores and feature, documentary, commercial, and corporate soundtracks, Grubačević is interested in pop, rock, and ethno music as much as in classical writing. “Two Rivers”, his cantata in two parts (I: Drava and II: Mura), based on melodies and motifs from the regions of Podravina and Međimurje, has been performed around the world, from Canada, the United States, Japan, England, Italy, Israel, and Georgia, to the region (Macedonia, Montenegro), by the Simply Brass Quintet, whose album Camminate Grubačević has also produced. In 2012, collaborating with the renowned American composer Eric Ewazen, he recorded two Simply Brass albums at the Croatian National Theatre. He has also worked with Australian composer Alan Holley.
Soundtrack composition, which has become his current stock in trade, begun with Grubačević’s well-received score for the 2006 children’s feature The Ghost in the Swamp, directed by Branko Ištvančić. Their collaboration continued with the 2011 drama The Bridge at the Edge of the World, based on an award-winning novel by Josip Mlakić. He is currently scoring his third feature.
Dalibor Grubačević was born and educated in Koprivnica. His musical beginnings came with the pop-rock band The Bugs, inspired by the music of The Beatles, whose music he has closely studied; the band recorded a studio album in the early 1990’s. Later, Grubačević studied classical composition under the private tutelage of Professor Natalija Imbrišak.
In addition to his film and TV music, Grubačević has had a long and fruitful career as an arranger for numerous Croatian and international artists. Since 2004, he has been working with Macedonian composer, singer and producer Aleksandar Mitevski, arranging the humanitarian song “Site sme nivni deca”, which featured many Macedonian pop stars. One of them was the late Toše Proeski, for whom Grubačević had written a string arrangement for his cover of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” He has also arranged for Dario Pankovski (album Dario – 25 live!), Aleksandar Mitevski (Kirilica), and Zoran Džorlev, on the song “Ne kažuvaj libe” from the eponymous album. He has also arranged for Arsen Dedić, on his cover of Mitevski’s song “Balada”. Grubačević has produced the 2008 album Fulmination by the renowned Croatian ethno-blues artist Miroslav Evačić, receiving a nomination for the country’s pre-eminent musical award, the Porin, in the Best Ethno Album category.
Also worth noting are his scores for the 2010 wartime documentary Silenced Voice, by Višnja Starešina, and the documentary series Hebrang by Zoran Budak and Aquatic Treasures of Croatia by Miro Andrić, in addition to the aforementioned In Search of Marco Polo, by Miro Branković.
