Elina Duni

Elina Duni ( born March 10, 1981 in Tirana) is an Albanian -Swiss jazz singer. With her ​​quartet interprets folk songs from the Balkans with the stylistic devices of the modern Jaz. She lives in Berne.

Life

As the daughter of two artists - the writer Bessa Myftiu and that coming from the southern Albanian village Dhërmi director Spiro Duni - Elina was in communist Albania was five years old for the first time on stage. The child learned the violin and made ​​appearances on radio and television. The parents got divorced, and in 1992 moved Elina with her mother in Switzerland. She lived for ten months in Lucerne, then in Geneva, where she was trained in piano at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève; at the Collège de Saussure she discovered jazz. After graduation in 2000, she participated in several film, theater and jazz projects in Albania and Switzerland.

From 2004 to 2008 studied Duni singing and composition at the Hochschule der Künste Bern. During this time also founded the Elina Duni Quartet consisting of Colin Vallon (piano), Bänz Oester (bass) and Norbert Pfammatter (drums). Vallon had moved to, songs to play from their homes - which were their but hardly familiar from childhood, as parents despised the Communist system promoted by the folk music.

Minted is the music of the quartet - in which since 2012 Patrice Moret bass playing - from Duni's singing. In 2008, the band released their first CD and toured half of Europe. They also played at the Jazz Festival Willisau and the Grenoble Jazz Festival. The third CD of the quartet, which appeared in 2012, was produced by the record label ECM.

In addition, Duni also involved in other bands, so the Albanian electric avant-garde pop band Retrovizorja, and can be heard as a guest on André Manoukians Melanchology.

Awards

Duni received the 2005 Special Jury Prize in Tirana for the CD Lakuriq with the group Retrovizorja. In 2007 she was awarded the Friedl Wald scholarship. The following year she was honored by the Music Committee of the Canton of Bern with the Coup de cœur; also, she received a scholarship from the University of the Arts Bern for the Best Career Entry (2008). My quartet was selected for the 2010-2012 priority jazz promotion of Pro Helvetia. 2012, she is the winner of the 15th Essen Jazz pot.

Quotes

" But rarely the ear touches a music Baresha, as the songs of the unknown Elina Duni that turns Albanian, Greek and Bulgarian songs in jazz on their first album without them and sell yourself short. "

" In general, it is striking how naturally find each other here two worlds, far from stereotyped Balkan Jazz. "

Disco printing specifications

• Baresha (2008)
• Lume, Lume (2010)
• Matane malitol - Beyond the Mountain ( 2012)
• Në Shkodër (2014)