The voice that brought Serbia back to Eurovision after a break of several years now lands in an intimate setting near Belgrade. Bojana Stamenov performs with her quintet on July 18 at Ekata Estate in Krnjevo, in the atrium of the complex, in a jazz-soul frame where her vocal comes into its own without turbo-folk arrangements and stadium noise.

Stamenov, born in 1986, became a regional name in 2015 when she won the Serbian selection for Eurovision with Ceo svet je moj, performed in Vienna under the English title Beauty Never Lies, a song that earned her 10th place. But the road there was much longer than a single show in Vienna - she has been singing since the age of seven, completed three departments at a music high school (guitar, lute and Renaissance singing), and the public first noticed her in the talent show Ja imam talenat!, where she reached the final.

What the pop-showbiz format rarely reveals is her real territory - soul, jazz and rhythm and blues. With the Bojana Stamenov Band she regularly plays jazz stages, including the Nišville festival, and alongside her concerts she also has performances for children at Belgrade's Boško Buha Theatre. The quintet setup in Krnjevo is exactly that Bojana - loud when she needs to be, but with room for the nuances an arena swallows.

The concert starts at 18:00, and reservations and tickets go through Ekata Estate and tickets.rs. For an evening where the voice dominates, not the pyrotechnics, the complex near Krnjevo offers a setting that matches the music.