We hear from Goran Bregovic (pronounced goh-rahn breh-goh-vitch), for the third of a series of quick QnAs with artists performing at Womad NZ this year.

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The celebrated composer and former rock star Goran Bregovic conjures emotive, emblematic anthems of the Balkans. Always surprising, with ambitious compositions through more than 30 albums over 30 years, he fuses European classicism and raucous Balkan rhythms, driven by electric guitar, a feisty gypsy brass band and an all-male choir.

What (or who) did you want to be when you were growing up?

I wanted to become a priest, but life, as it always does, played a trick on me

What are you reading at the moment?

Steven Hawking “The Grand Design”

What’s currently playing on your iPod?

I don’t think that any normal gynaecologist – even though he works with the best thing in the world – after a work day of eight hours wants to continue his work. So I mostly sit in silence.

What kind of music do you prefer as a listener?

In music my taste oscillates between Arvo Pärt and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, and I believe that most of my audience's taste is in that area too.

Where did the inspiration for this work come from?

There are composers who await the sunrise or sunset, who wait to be drugged with wine or love, abandoned, disappointed… I today believe in working eight hours a day and in writing music with the feeling that it is work like any other work. Just like work of a cobbler, mechanic, surgeon…

What do you hope audiences will take away from this work?

If you mean what would I like to be remembered by – it would be for being a contemporary composer who is not boring. If you mean what would I hope they would take away from my concert, then it would be joy – a face illuminated by a smile

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Goran Bregovic perform at Womad NZ, Taranaki, March 15-17, 2013