By Amel Emric and Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Every Friday, folk musician

Enes Salman performs the Sevdalinka, an ancient form of love

song from Bosnia and Herzegovina that this month was included in

UNESCO's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Sevdalinka, often referred to as the Balkan Blues, is a

melancholic urban love song dating back to the 16th century. It

is a mix of South Slavic oral poetry and the music of the

Ottoman Empire.

Salman is one of a few musicians who are keeping the old

tradition alive.

"I have been playing and singing Sevdalinka since I was 14,"

Salman said before a recent performance.

Sevdalinka, often performed a capella or accompanied by

traditional instruments like a lute, has been carried from

generation to generation through performances at family

gatherings.

In recent years, novel interpretations of Sevdalinka by a

few younger musicians have brought it to global audiences.

One of them is Damir Imamovic, whose father and grandfather

were famous Sevdalinka bards. Imamovic won awards in 2020/2021

for the European best album by world music magazines Songlines

and Transglobal.

Imamovic promotes Sevdalinka internationally through his

SevdahLab project, which drummed up support for the song's

inclusion on the UNESCO's World Heritage list.

"I realised how little the public knows about the Sevdalinka

genre and wanted to reveal the story behind that music," he

said.

Zanin Berbic, 28, an ethno-musicologist who plays saz, a

long-necked lute used in Ottoman classical music, says that

Sevdalinka tells the story of Bosnia's history.

"Most of my days I spend either singing or playing

Sevdalinka songs or reading or talking about them," said Berbic,

who works as a custodian in the music department of Bosnia's

Regional Museum in Sarajevo.

"Sevdalinka is my life."