Concert accordionist Merima Ključo imbues a dizzying variety of music with playing that moves with its depth of understanding and experience.
With a background in contemporary music, she performs internationally as a recitalist and has been guest soloist with many orchestras, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Holland Symphonia, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Citymusic Cleveland. As soloist, she has participated in a number of renowned festivals, including the St. Magnus Festival (Scotland), the City of London Festival, the Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam), and the Gubaidulina Festival, which honored one of the greatest composers of our time, Sofia Gubaidulina.
She was a member of the Checkpoint KBK with Iva Bittova and David Krakauer, and Serendipity 4 with singers Theodore Bikel and Shura Lipovsky, and pianist Tamara Brooks, and was a regular guest of MusikFabrik, the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble and the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble. She frequently collaborates with renowned artists and authors such as Miroslav Tadić, Saša Stanišić, Jelena Milušić and Matija Dedić among others.
Her performances have been broadcast by prominent networks around the globe such as BBC, PBS and PRI.
She contributed music to the films In the Land of Blood and Honey, written and directed by Angelina Jolie, with a score by the Oscar-winning composer Gabriel Yared, and Jack by Sergej Kreso, among others. She performed in the documentary films Journey 4 Artists, by Michele Noble, and Stories of Sevdah, by Robert Golden.
Opera and theatre companies with whom Ključo has performed include the National Jewish Theater, Bremer Theater, Nederlandse Kinder Theater, EastWest Theater Company, Zagreb Youth Theater and Tiroler Landestheater.
She has collaborated with prize-winning theatre directors: Daniel Landau, Derek Goldman Sabina Varjača and Kokan Mladenović among others.
Ključo with her best friend
Next to her solo career Ključo focuses her work on composing, arranging and performing music for variety of projects in theater, film and radio:
- She composed and performed music for Sholom Alechiem: Laughter Through Tears' a one-man play, written and performed by the legendary actor and singer Theodore Bikel. Directed by Derek Goldman.
- For the Bayerischer Rundfunk Ključo composed and performed music for the radio drama Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert, based on the book by Saša Stanišić, and directed by Leonhard Koppelmann. The production is published as an audio book by Random House.
-Ključo wrote music for film Sevap/Mitzvah by Sabina Vajrača. The film has won multiple awards at film festivals including the Audience Award at Italy's 2023 Sedicicorto International Film Festival,[ the International Vision Award at the 2023 Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival, and Best Female Focus Jury Award at the 2023 Cordillera International Film Festival. Sevap / Mitzvah has qualified to be considered for a 2024 Academy Award.
- She wrote music for documentary Little Star Rising by Sladjana Lučić. The movie premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival and since then was screened at the different film festivals around the world.
- She collaborated with Marije Schuurman Hess and composed and performed music for the radio drama Help (KRO-NCRV)
q&a at the Sarajevo Film Festival
-In 2024, the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck and director Jasmina Hadžiahmetović invited Ključo to compose music for a play Herkunft, based on a book by Saša Stanišić.
Link to the Tiroler Landestheater
- For the association of theater artists Alteteatar from Sarajevo, Ključo wrote the music for the following two plays.
- Balkanski Kvadrat Kredom, directed by Slaven Vidak (2023)
-Hoćemo L' Više, directed by Admir Glamočak (2020)
-In 2021, Kamerni Teatar Sarajevo and director Kokan Mladenović invited Merima to contribute music for a play Schindlerov lift, based on a book by Darko Cvijetić .
- Ključo was musical director and composer for two very successful theater plays at the
Zagreb Youth Theater, directed by Edvin Liverić.
- Orchestra Rehearsal based on Federico Fellini's movie (2018)
- The Notebook based on the book by Ãgota Kristòf (2016)
‣ Link to the ZagrebYouth Theater
Ključo rehearsing with the Zagreb Youth Theater’s actors
Her multimedia work The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book for accordion, piano and video traces the dramatic story of one of Jewish culture's most treasured manuscripts. Using the musical traditions of Spain, Italy, Austria, and Bosnia & Herzegovina Ključo illustrates and illuminates the Haggadah's travels from medieval Spain to 20th century Bosnia where it was hidden and rescued during World War II, to its restoration by the National Museum in Sarajevo after the 1992-1995 war. Inspired by the historical novel People of the Book by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks, The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book creatively interprets this miraculous artifact as a universal symbol of exile, return, and co-existence.
The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book was commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Culture and it was performed all over the United States of America, Canada and Europe.
in 2018 Ključo orchestrated The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book for the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra.
‣ Link to the Bostone Globe article ‣ Link to the Cleveland Scene
‣ Link to the Washington Post article ‣ Link to the Plain Dealer
‣ Link to the Austin Chronicle ‣ Link to the Jewish Journal
‣ Link to the Cleveland Classical article ‣ Link to the Fairfax Times
Merima Ključo and Geraldine Brooks
In commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo in 2012, the East West Theater Company and renowned Bosnian theater director Haris Pasović invited Merima as musical director to compose, arrange, and perform a music poem Sarajevo Red Line.
The piece, which incorporated traditional and pop songs, as well as classical music with deep cultural significance, was performed on April 6, 2012 to an audience of 11, 541 empty red chairs lining the main boulevard in Sarajevo, with one chair for every life lost in the siege. On that day, thousands of people from all walks of life congregated to witness and remember.
Sarajevo Commemoration