John Ilija Apelgren marks forty years of his music career in the Great Hall of the Macedonian National Theatre on October 31 at 20:00, with the jubilee concert "40 Summers of Music".

The retrospective starts in 1984 with the rock band Deus, where Apelgren took his first steps as a vocalist, and runs through his cult appearances at Makfest and the concert series "Musical Stroll" with songs in French, Portuguese and Spanish. There will also be compositions by maestro Dragan Gjakonovski Špato, jazz standards from Frank Sinatra's repertoire and premieres of new works, some by Apelgren himself and some written specially for him by pianist Gordan Spasovski.

Spasovski also prepared the arrangements for the concert; this year he won the world competition for the best jazz composition for big band in the Netherlands. On stage Apelgren is backed by a jazz combo reinforced with a string quartet, and the special guest is double bassist Martin Gjakonovski, a member of M2, the first jazz outfit with which Apelgren began singing jazz.

Tickets cost from 800 to 1,200 denars and are on sale through karti.com.mk and mktickets.mk.