World Music Day

Commemorative issue of postage stamp „World Music Day – Ph.D friar Branko Marić (Marijić)“ is a memory of the first BH ethnomusicologist who has made a great contribution in the field of BH musical arts, especially in the field of autochthonous music.

Friar Branko (Mate) Marić was born on July 27, 1896 in a picturesque village Vrdi on the slopes of the mountain Čabulja that steeply into the canyons of the rivers Drežanjka and Neretva. After graduating the public school he goes to Široki Brijeg to study for the friar. Here, he graduates High schools and start study of theology in Mostar and continues in Ljubljana. He graduated in Vienna for the piano teacher in 1935, and two years later, also in Vienna, he received his doctorate on the subject „Die Volksmusik Bosniens und der Herzegovina“. He became priest in Ljubljana on June 29, 1922. Friar Branko studied folk music and musical instruments, ethnography and he was founder of an ethnographic and numismatic collection at the Franciscan classical high school in Široki Brijeg. In 1945 he emigrated and remained in exile until the end of his life. He died in Zurich (Switzerland) on May 2, 1974. His remains, as he desired during the life, were transposed in Herzegovina and buried in Mostar at the Franciscan cemetery Šoinovac. Ph.D. Jasmina Talam from the Institute for Ethnomusicology of the Music Academy in Sarajevo, with her associates, is the most responsible for friar Branko’s rediscovery. In the Proceedings „In honor of 120th birth anniversary of the first Bosnian-Herzegovinian ethnomusicologist friar Branko Marić” Ph.D Talam points out: “His ethnicity, also confirmed during later investigations, was the way for Bosnian-Herzegovinian ethnomusicology.” (Friar Ante Marić)