Bojan Ristic, the leader of the Bojan Ristic Brass Band was born in Vladicin Han, in family that has a lot of music experience.
Bojan’s grandfather Zika Ristic, famous Deda Zika, was excellent drummer. His successor was Zoran Ristic, also supreme drummer.
Bojan changed this tradition a little bit, and started with playing trumpet, at the age of 7. He appears to be a great talent, so he had his first official performance on the contest “Vlasinsko leto” in Surdulica, at the age of 14, and he qualified for the Gathering in Guca, in the category of young orchestras.
The first award, Bojan won in Surdulica on “Vlasinsko leto” contest in 1999. It was the award for The best young trumpet player. He continued with winning awards: The best young orchestra in Guca 2000. His popularity with the audience was increasing, which resulted in meny new awards: The best young trumpet player in Guca 2002, The best orchestra in “Wine ball” Vlasotince 2002, The best orchestra in Gadzin Han 2002.
After a one year-pause, due to military service, Bojan won “The best young trumpet player” award in Guca 2004, and prooved that he is the very best young trumpet player in Serbia.
Bojan Ristić started his professional career in 2005, when he started working with agency Marvin and Goran Damnjanovic, who soon became his executive manager and godfather to his children. Since May 2005, Bojan’s orchestra have performed with its current name, Bojan Ristic Brass Band.
Bojan recorded his first CD Golden Melos while still amateur, while he recorded his first professional CD „Mile VS muzička industrija“, produced by famous Serbian production house B92. Singles like “La bamba” and “Maljčiki” recorded significant success and immediately became great hits.
The same year, BRBB started its international career. Marvin organized dozen performances in Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia, including several performances with regional pop stars Severina and Valentino. In October 2005, BRBB had 6 performances in Nancy, Metz, Montigny, Sarrebourg and Lynvilly in Northern France, as part of the Nancy jazz pulsation festival. This festival influenced BRBB to start introducing more Latino and Jazz beats into its music.
In 2006, BRBB further performed across Europe, including Italy, Greece and Romania, and on Koper Nights Festival in Slovenia, where local pop star Magnifico featured BRBB in 8 new songs on his latest album Grand Parade.
In early 2007, BRBB performed on a great tour in France, while between 20 February and 10 March it had its first tour in Northern Greece, when it performed in Kozani, Veria and Kastoria. The same year, BRBB started collaboration with Marija Šerifović, who won the Eurosong 2007 contest, and BRBB performed on her celebration performance in front of more than 100,000 people audience in Belgrade. Later in 2007, it performed as intro group on another concert in front of 40,000 audience on Belgrade fortress Kalemegdan.
BRBB won its first The Best Orchestra prize on famous Serbian Guca Trumpet Festival in 2008. The same year, it performed more than 50 times all across Europe, and started the House & Trumpet project with Croatian DJ Joe2Shine, which instantly had significant success.
BRBB recorded its third CD in 2009, named “Poludeli kum” (Bestman gone mad), produced by national media corporation RTS. During the same year, BRBB had more than 80 performances, including 30 House & Trumpet performances in Heingway bars in the West Balkan region.
During 2010 BRBB performed on Guca on Kras Festival in Slovenia, among many other performances, where it recorded the first Live CD.
In 2011 and 2012 BRBB won the 2nd Best Orchestra prize in Guca. Among other concerts in this period, BRBB is especially proud of performance on FIS Ski World Cup event in Val Gardena in Italy.
Between 2012 and 2015, among many international performances, we point out performances in Piaza Verdi in Trieste and Riva del Garda in Italy, Mistu in Romania, Veronikine Večeti in Slovenia, Ornei Vecni in Moldova and more than 100 concerts across Balkan region, as well as 120 House & Trumpet performances with DJ Joe 2 Shine in famous night clubs across the region. In this period BRBB also worked with Chuck D and Tijana Bass on Face of Freedom project.
In 2016, BRBB put focus on Guca Festival, where it had enormous success. BRBB won the Best Orchestra prize once again, and was among first three places in all contesting categories: the Best Orchestra, the Best Big Bass, the Best Small Bass, the Second Best Trumpet and the Second Best Drums. This was the first time in 52-year history of the festival that one orchestra won one of the first three prizes in all of the categories. In addition to great success in Guca, BRBB also performed more than 70 times across Balkan region.
The Band opened 2017 international season with 4 back-to-back sold out concerts in Half Note Jazz Club in Athens in February, and continued to perform around the Balkans region – concert for Serbian Orthodox Church in St’ Anthon’s square in Trieste, Italy in May and two concerts in Ljubljana – City Park concert for Interspar in May and Roštiljada Festival in front of 20k people in early June. The first ever performance in Poland was held later in June in Stary Klasztor in Wroclaw. Summer season was closed with performance for Swiss Ambassy in Belgrade for Swiss National holiday in August, and performance in Guča na Krasu Festival in Zgonico, Italy in September.
In the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 the Band had several performances in clubs in Croatia and Bosnia&Herzegovina, and two concerts in Slovenia in beginning of 2018 – Cankarjev Dom and Roštiljada festival in Ljubljana. In June the Bend performed on Roma festival in Maribor, Slovenia.
In 2019 the Bend held several international concerts: Megaron Hall in Athens in January, House & Trumpet performance on Fort Georges on island Vis, Croata in May, in castle Dvorec Zemono, Slovenia in June and in Perje in Pula, Croatia in September. The year was closed with participation on a New Year Show of Serbian National Broadcasting Service.
In early 2020 the Band performed in Hotel Grand Union in Ljubljana and on Naoussa carnival in Greece in February before the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic.
Due to Covid, from March 2020 to the end of 2021, the Band had very limited international engagement: Latcho Dives Roma festival in Leipzig, Germany and HutFestival in Chemnic, Germany in September/October 2020, October 2021 concert in Galry Club in Zagreb, Croatia and private parties in Croatia and Slovenia in November/December 2021.