Their personal qualities have brought them great professional success. These are the stories of our successful people that we publish in the section “On the ladder of success”. Fakulteti.mk and the Educational Center of “Pivara Skopje” through the training “Skills for Success” show you the way to the stars.

Her first performance at the age of nine, at a play at the Pioneer Home in Bitola, launched one of the most successful pop stories in our country, which is still going on and is called Karolina Gocheva. Undoubtedly a well-deserved bearer of the epithet pop diva, Karolina successfully swims through the generational music trends, and each of her performances is a kind of push of the “refresh” button, where in addition to loyal fans, new young people appear who enjoy her music.

– I think the first public performance was a performance organized for November 29 by the Pioneer House and I remember singing “Like a prayer” by Madonna, which was my favorite song at the time, and a month later I performed the same song at the then very famous children’s TV show “Sharam Baram”. I was 9 years old. I have always been a troublemaker and that has not changed until this day, but now I can somehow control it and I do not allow it to overwhelm me (except sometimes) – says Karolina.

“Ajde da letame”, “Hipokrit”, “Od nas zavisi”, “I se kje bide vo red” are part of the list of hits that Karolina has sung over the years. She has twice represented Macedonia at the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2002 and 2007, and has 11 studio albums behind her.

– There are many hits, and with different genres. Let’s start with “Ajde da letame”, which was recorded in the year 2000, then “Hipokrit” (about which I wasn’t even aware it was a hit until few years ago), then “Od nas zavisi”, a song that I love very much, and which passed ingloriously at Eurovision 2002, but that obviously does not mean anything, to this day I gladly sing it at performances, always accompanied by a choir from the audience. Further “You are not coming back” and my favorite “Drop under the sky”. Until the last albums with my longtime collaborator Nikola Micevski, where we dedicated ourselves to the traditional Macedonian sound combined with modern directions. So that’s how “Dve liri” was born, a song that is sung by people from 7 to 77 years of age, “Zvona”, “Beli cvetovi” “… I must have forgotten some more, but it doesn’t matter, the most important thing for me is that when in recent years I perform the best songs of all 20 and a half years behind me, the audience sings them with me at concerts from beginning to end.

As a girl I adored Madonna’s new albums, Whitney …

Karolina fell in love with music as a little girl in Bitola, where her parents took her to see the then Yugoslav pop stars who were guests. At that time, Karolina started attending elementary music school, after the locals already recognized her great love for music, especially because she did not stop begging them to buy each new album of her then idols Whitney Houston, Madonna, Cindy Lauper.

– I remember that in the 80s, still in the time of Yugoslavia, there were constant tours of the then Ex-Yu pop stars and I remember that my parents did not miss the opportunity to take us to see whoever performed in Bitola. I also remember that every “Makfest” and Eurovision were a special experience for me and I followed them with special attention, and I often recorded them on videotape so that I could then learn my favorite songs. Also, I had every new album of my favorite artists, so I remember as a 6-7 year old girl I yearned for the new albums of Madonna, Whitney, Cindy Lauper … and I still remember most of the songs from that time from the beginning till the end.

My earliest memories are with music. I had other interests, but the desire for music dominated, at the age of 6 I was part of the Pioneer Home in Bitola and part of the events organized for various holidays, and then I was enrolled in elementary music school because I had a great desire to play the piano. I do not think my parents have influenced me, but they certainly encouraged my desire after noticing that there was a basis for it. By the way, no one in my family was particularly interested in music, except as a fan, and the dominant profession is medicine, given that my sister (ophthalmologist) followed in the footsteps of my father (anesthesiologist), and my mother is a technologist in pension. Only my mother claims that her father sang very well, so maybe I inherited my talent from him.

Confidence was never my strong point

Her debut performance at “Makfest” at only 11 years old is the moment when the general public found out about Karolina. As a high school student, she has already performed extensively at festivals throughout Macedonia and some international ones, a period she says: “It can be said that I was already popular, at least in the generation.” Karolina, however, kept the typical high school rhythm, where in the first place were her friends and their nights out, so every Friday was a fight with her parents for 5 minutes plus permission to go out.

– At only 11 years old I performed at “Makfest” for the first time, after I was previously noticed at “Si Do” (children’s festival), but somehow I did not imagine that it would be a profession that I would work actively and live from it and a profession that, as and every other, will bring me too many beautiful, but also less beautiful moments and experiences. I attended primary school in Bitola, and my most interesting subjects were history, geography and of course foreign languages, so that interest stuck with me and later I enrolled at the Faculty of Philology. Of course I was part of the school choir, but I was ashamed to perform as a soloist. Self-confidence has never been my strong point, especially at a time when I was just a little girl with big desires.

I started elementary music school when I was in the first grade. The music school in Bitola even then was a very serious nursery for talents, it is known that our greatest music legend Tose Proeski finished high school there, and a bunch of other names, especially from the classical sphere, so it has always been considered an institution of respect. I attended high school in “Josip Broz-Tito” in Bitola and I enrolled there because all my friends enrolled in it, my parents studied there, and it was the most popular school. And these are the most important reasons when you are 14, 15 years old.

I love working in the studio, but concerts are special magic

As a person who finds it difficult to get out of her comfort zone, at least she says so, Karolina does not easily decide to make changes in her career. She constantly collects ideas for her own work, which she hopes will be realized in the near future, and for now remains faithful to the fans, offering the best moments of each concert performance.

– I have a lot of ideas that have accumulated over the years and all of them have been documented (for now only for myself), so I think that in the near future I will be encouraged to record something of my own, original. I am a person who has a hard time getting out of the comfort zone. Connoisseurs of astrology will say “it’s because of your zodiac ” and I will say “I don’t know what’s going on with me”, but I can not do it! I just need more time to make a change or to show a new aspect of myself, but I do not feel the need to change the pace. I trust my inner feeling more and more.

– I love studio work and it is always among my favorite activities, but concerts are a special magic. I want to be part of the creative process and I always take care of everything about what the concerts should look like, what songs will be sung, in what order, I convey my ideas about the arrangements and so on. The part behind the scenes can be a lot of fun and fulfilling. I have performed, been a guest and collaborated with some of the biggest names in this area, starting from our Tose, Vlatko, Kaliopi, Vlado… Even the last project / album, which I hope will be released soon, is with Duke Bojadziev and Ismail Lumanovski, as well as the song we last released with Branko – Pijan Slavej. I was part of several humanitarian campaigns throughout the region, I would mention the one from 2006 in Croatia together with Aki Rahimovski, as well as the 2010 campaign for cervical cancer together with Maja Car, Aleksandra Radovic и and Nina Badric.

I am probably forgetting something equally important from my career, but there will be another opportunities for reminiscence to come.

Prepared by: Nikola Petrovski

Photos’ source: femina.mk; Darko Moraitov; Kosta Dupcinov.