Aleksandar Sasha Karlic was born in Yugoslavia in 1968 and comes from a family that has been cultivating both Western classical music and the country's diverse musical traditions for generations. After beginning his music studies in Belgrade, he moved to Italy in 1984, where he studied at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, the Conservatorio 'G. Verdi' in Milan and the Conservatorio 'A. Boito' in Parma. His encounters with two great lutenists, the American Hopkinson Smith and the Iraqi Munir Bashir, in 1985 and 1986 respectively, were fundamental to his later musical work. He then specialised in the performance practice of early music with Jakob Lindberg, Christopher Wilson, Jesper Boye-Christensen, Anner Bylsma and Roberto Gini.
In 1991, he received a scholarship from the SIAE to study certain aspects of Spanish Renaissance music in depth. This research gradually brought him into contact with the various musical traditions of the Mediterranean. After graduating in lute and baroque guitar (and a brief but intense interlude in baroque music with some specialised groups, including the Accademia Bizantina), he increasingly devoted himself to the various branches of ethnic music, with a focus on the oud and other oriental lutes, traditional percussion and the use of the voice.
He has been influenced by many important musicians in various countries, the most influential of whom were Giacomo Baroffio (Cremona), Bekir Baaloglu (Istanbul), Vangelis Merkouris (Athens), Elat Gabbay (Jerusalem) and Nikola Popmihajlov (Belgrade). Since 1995, he has divided his activities equally between ancient and traditional music, as a researcher, teacher and, of course, as a performer.
Since 1997, Karlic has been directing the ensemble Theatrum Instrumentorum, with whom he has taken part in the most important festivals in Italy and Europe and recorded eight CDs, each of which have been awarded major prizes by Italian and international critics, including the Editor's Choice of the renowned Gramophone magazine for the recording of the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" for ARTS.
After his interlude with the Italian Balkan music group Tri Muzike (winner of the 1st prize for world music at the Musiche e Suoni dal Mondo festival in 1999), he founded his new group Yefira in 2007, with the best musicians specialising in Eastern European repertoire. The group's first album, together with Karlic's Bucs "Balkan Crossroads", will be released soon.
He was invited by the World Youth Orchestra to prepare and orchestrate early and traditional pieces from twelve Mediterranean countries for their 2003/2004 tour. His composition "Iephyra" for Oud, violin and orchestra (based on the work of the 17th-century Istanbul composer Zacharias Hanende), which was commissioned by the WYO for its 2004/2005 tour, was performed with great success first in Rome and then in Amman and Jerusalem.
Karlic, who has recorded around 20 CDs for various Italian, European and Japanese labels, has held masterclasses and workshops on various topics of ancient and ethnic music in Italy and abroad. He currently teaches oriental modal music at the Conservatorio "Benedetto Marcello" in Venice.