Denil Babovic is local musician in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina who changed his workflow and view of the music scene after the Coronavirus pandemic. In an effort to revive the distraught alternative music scene in Tuzla, Denil took a step in providing up-and-coming young musicians and talent an opportunity and a space to practice, develop, hone and grow their craft.
After 5 years on the local music scene in Tuzla, doing mostly alternative music performances, an obvious but startling fact came to light: there were almost no new bands being formed in Tuzla, and almost no new artists or performers were joining the scene. The few that have arisen after the pandemic came to another hurdle to overcome: the new bands and artists don’t have a viable space to practice their performances and they have no access to any kind of mentorship. This all started to change with the beginning of 2022. An informal group of artists took it upon themselves to create a space for musicians. A space which is a host to a variety of applications, with the most important being a rehearsal space for bands and individual musicians, and second most important being a space for education and learning.
Even though the project is still in its early development, the flow of bands has already increased, which is a staggering positive step, from old bands being revived, to new bands being formed and to providing already established bands a space to work professionally, which in turn develops the local music scene by default.
In spite of the fact that this is already good news, our goal as the informal group of artists is to provide as many education possibilities to the local musicians as possible in the following years. We feel that the alternative music scene in Tuzla is at a crossroads at this point in time, and without the help of likeminded people it will go the way of the dodo bird. However, we are confident that through unity and collaboration and, most importantly, persistence the scene can have a chance to flourish again in the time ahead of us.