A singer who started in a student dormitory in Zagreb and is today one of the most recognisable voices of Dalmatian song is coming to Skopje for the first time. Marko Škugor performs in the hall of the Macedonian Philharmonic on October 17 starting at 20:00, at a concert billed under the title „The Sound of the Mediterranean”.

Škugor was born in Šibenik in 1989 and holds a master's degree in economics. During his studies in Zagreb he sang in a student klapa, and later passed through the klapa groups Kampanel and Maslina. In 2013 he became first tenor of „Klapa s mora”, the group that represented Croatia at Eurovision with the song „Mižerja”. In the same period he took singing lessons with the tenor Stojan Stojanov Gančev, a former principal of the Zagreb opera, who predicted an opera career for him. He chose Dalmatian song instead.

His breakthrough as a soloist came at the Split Festival in 2014, where „Devet slova jedne riči” won him the Grand Prix. Two years later he ran the „Zvuci Mediterana” tour with over 40 concerts and won the audience award at the Evenings of Dalmatian Chanson with „Samo ti si”. Among the collaborations people remember most is the duet „Samo s tobom sam upoznao ljubav” with Oliver Dragojević, and with Danijela Martinović he recorded „Ono nešto”.

The repertoire for the Skopje evening leans towards ballads and the recognisable hits, and the choice of hall is no accident: the philharmonic is an acoustic space where a voice like this is heard without the reinforcement an arena demands. Tickets run from 1,600 to 2,200 denars and are sold via mktickets.mk and karti.com.mk.