Concert accordionist, composer and teaching musician Nihad Hrustanbegovic is from Bosnia & Herzegovina and has been living in the Netherlands since December 1994. From 1982 - 1992 he took a music course in Bosnia & Herzegovina and in 1988, 1990 and 1991 was selected at the national accordion competition from former Yugoslavia five-time prize winner. In 1995, Nihad Hrustanbegovic started training at the ArtEZ Conservatory for teaching and performing musicians in Arnhem and graduated cum laude in 2002. Nihad Hrustanbegovic's study was made possible in the Netherlands by the UAF Foundation. Since 2011 he has been affiliated with this Conservatoire as a major subject teacher of the accordion.
In the spring of 2007, Nihad Hrustanbegovic produced his first solo album 'The Best of Concert Accordion' in the Netherlands, with his own world music jazz composition, the Stork suite, semionov's neoclassical, classical transcriptions by Bach, Scarlatti, Grieg and Paganini and postmodern compositions by Gubaidulina and Schmidt. On March 27, 2007 he released this CD via his website www.nihad-accordion.com and a day later he presented his first solo CD and his own composition 'Stork Suite' live in the TV program 'De Wereld'. Turns On’.
Nihad's performance in ‘De wereld Draait Door’ was chosen by DWDD viewers, via an internet poll, as the best performance out of all performed artists of the 2007 season. His music inspired director Werner Damen and advertising agency TBWA/Neboko to use his composition 'Wereldpromenade' in the Heineken Extra Cold TV Commercial. In the same year he was rewarded by the Platform BiH Foundation and Mladi BiH (on behalf of the community of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Netherlands) with the ‘Personality of the Year 2007’ Award.
Recognized for his inventiveness and acclaimed for his intensity, Hrustanbegovic has also played with renowned artists and for renowned audiences, from Grace Jones to Queen Beatrix. He performed with Al Di Meola, The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and was a guest in TV programs such as Free Sounds and Top 2000 A GoGo. His solo concerts and performances with other artists and finally two solo albums have yielded impressive reviews in various national and international media in recent years. TV CBS in Canada even declared him one of the three greatest accordion heroes in the world today.
On June 6, 2010 during his first accordion solo concert in the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Nihad Hrustanbegovic presented his second solo album under the name Opus 7 ‘The Cross over’ with his own compositions and improvisations. This concert and the CD presentation resulted in a standing ovation from a full house. Stan Rijven, journalist of Dagblad Trouw said in his speech at the end of the concert “ What Pablo Casals meant for the emancipation of the cello and Astor Piazzolla for the bandoneon, Nihad Hrustanbegovic does for the accordion. He gives the poor man's piano a proper place on the concert stage.â€