Sanja Ilić

Aleksandar Sanja Ilić (27 March 1951 – 7 March 2021) was one of the most famous composers of pop and rock music of former and new Yugoslavia. He started with the band "San" in Belgrade. He composed songs for almost all major singers. Many of his compositions won the title "Hit of the Year". He has won many awards of the audience and jury at festivals in Yugoslavia. With the song "Halo, Halo" sung by the band "Aske" he participated in 1982 in Harrowgate, England, as winner of the domestic competition for the Eurovision Song Contest. He later composed the song "Princeza", which attempted to represent Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984. performed by Slađana + Dado. He founded the group Balkanika in 1998, and with them he represented Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "Nova deca". He writes music for theater, film and television, and his instrumental music "Delta Project" was the most frequently broadcasted and the best selling project of instrumental music of all times in Yugoslavia. Writing music scores for theater performances also brought songs which have become very popular and have outlived the performances for which they had been written, as for instance "Plava Ptica" ("The Blue Bird"). Sanja has also considerably worked with actors who sing and has made a significant opus in that field. Each year at the Herceg Novi Music Festival the first evening of the festival is reserved for actors. This musical spectacle is designed by Sanja Ilić. In April 1999 during the bombardment of Belgrade he composed the song "Moj grad još peva..." ("My City Is Still Singing..."). The performing artists were the very actors who had for years been cooperating with Sanja. Recently he has been obsessed with ethnic music of the Balkans which resulted in his writing the original music for the BALKAN 2000 project. Sanja is a son of Miodrag Ilić Beli, a brother of Dragan Ilić and father of Andrej Ilić. Ilić died on 7 March 2021 in Belgrade, due to complications caused by COVID-19.