Mladen Grdović in Ludbreg on September 5 - the Dalmatian singer who waited thirteen years between his first single and his first album

Mladen Grdović performs on September 5 in the tent on the athletics track in Ludbreg, as part of the Sveta Nedjelja festival running on September 4 and 5. Doors at 21:00, and a ticket costs 10 euros, around 620 denars.

Grdović was born in 1958 in Zadar and was already singing at the age of four, when they called him Robertino after the famous Italian boy singer. At six he got his first guitar from his father. He started performing publicly at thirteen and immediately took first prizes at competitions. The composer Đorđe Novković discovered him and helped him record his first single in 1977, while his first studio album, „Doviđenja”, did not arrive until 1990.

Thirteen years between a first single and a first album is a gap that today would simply mean the end of a career. For Grdović it meant the opposite: he became one of the central names of Dalmatian popular music, with a string of festival wins. He has performed across Australia, Canada and the United States, where he has a standing audience among Croats living there.

Ludbreg is a small town in the Međimurje-Varaždin part of northern Croatia, and the concert is in a tent on the athletics track - a format that suits this repertoire better than an indoor hall ever would. Tickets are via entrio.hr.