Conflict diamonds - Nigel Osborne opera

With his new opera mining a rich seam of Bosnian music that ethnic cleansing could not destroy, Nigel Osborne tells Sarah Urwin Jones about falling in love with Sevdah

LOVE, war and betrayal may be the stock in trade of the operatic repertoire, but composer Nigel Osborne's latest work updates the format to one of the most harrowing war zones of modern times – the Balkans. Differences In Demolitions tells the tale of an exiled builder dreaming of his lost life back in Bosnia, his factious brothers, and his love, Sevdah. The interesting crux for opera fans is Osborne's trademark mingling of musical traditions, here bringing the Eastern echoes of traditional Bosnian folk music – Sevdah (a genre as well as a woman's name) – to Western opera.

The cultural mix is not just in the score. Musicians include experts from the Jewish Klezmer tradition, the Sevdah tradition, the ultra avant garde and the Western classical tradition. Indeed, one of Osborne's players cannot read music, but requires the composer to sing the tune into his ear, before relaying it "with far greater insight than if he could read music", says Osborne from his office at Edinburgh University where he is Reid Professor of Music and one of Europe's leading composers. "How much further removed can you get from the stuck-up arrogance of the composer creating his 'great work' on paper?"

Far from stuck-up, Osborne has worked with war-traumatised children at his Ulysses Theatre in Croatia, and on the design of an instrument that can be played by children with severe disabilities. His 'mainstream' compositions and operas, such as The Electrification Of The Soviet Union, play in concert halls from Glyndebourne to LA.

So what of this new opera? Regular audiences of the Hebrides Ensemble may remember a concert a couple of years ago in which the haunting work in progress was performed. Based on the poetry of Bosnian writer Goran Simic, the full work, commissioned in 2006 by Opera Circus, premiered last year in Mostar, Bosnia, before appearing at the City of London Festival. It is now getting a Scottish tour before it travels to Turkey, Georgia, the Balkans and the US.

"The opera had two different origins, really. One with the company, one with my own life," explains the 60-year-old. "In 1966, I was 16 and decided to hitchhike to Asia. I'd travelled over borders you couldn't dream of crossing today: Iran, Iraq, even Israel. On the way back I discovered myself in Bosnia and fell in love with the music and the architecture.

"I'd gone around the world searching for Turkish and Iranian music I could use, but felt it didn't belong to me, and yet there it all was in the middle of Europe. I felt I had, in Bosnian Sevdah music, my personal and justified link to that Eastern music with its Islamic and other roots."

Even after 40 years of involvement with Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was unsure if he had the 'right' to compose a 'Sevdah opera'. "I asked permission from some major Sevdah artists. I thought I was going to get roasted, but they liked the idea, feeling it needed an outsider to do it because it wouldn't be their role as guardians of the true tradition."

Indeed Osborne has, over the past few years of workshops, removed all but one Sevdah song, leaving just iconic echoes. "We agreed that if we'd written linking music between Sevdah songs – the original format – it would just be kitsch."

For Osborne, what makes Sevdah ideal for opera is its roots in narrative. "It first developed about 400 years ago under the Ottoman Empire," he explains. "It's constantly transforming itself, embracing electric and dance music, but the purest traditional forms are still cultivated. I have friends who make their living playing to people who drink in cafés because Sevdah is sung. It's all about lost love and youth, reliving the passions of your life. In late night bars, sad old men that love Sevdah put their arms in the air and sway. It's the music of an old man's ecstasy – very appealing."

Sevdah has taken on a new importance in Bosnia, surviving numerous attempts by Serbian and Croatian nationalists to politicise and dismiss it as 'Islamic'. "Sevdah has sort of won that battle now. Culture is more powerful than these b******s. You can quote me on that – I'm too old for them to do anything to me now," Osborne adds.

When the opera premiered in Mostar, Osborne admits to being "terrified" of his "presumptuous" act. "Once Mostar had taken the piece to its heart, the rest followed."

It was also a personal epiphany. "I met myself again and lived my original artistic associations with the place, before the politics and the work with children. One spends one's life chasing one's identity, but in the process we have sets of lives that go away, chains that are broken. It was lovely to pick up one of these broken chains again."

• Differences In Demolitions, Eden Court, Inverness (01463 234 234), Tuesday and Wednesday; Byre Theatre, St Andrews (01334 475 000), Saturday; Tron Theatre, Glasgow (0141-552 3748), May 27 and 28; Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (0131-668 2019), May 31

• www.tuneup.org.uk