Elina Duni

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Elina Duni plays the guitar during a concert in Biel (2018)

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

Life

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

From 2004 to 2008 Duni studied singing and composition at the Bern University of the Arts . During this time, the Elina Duni Quartet was founded, consisting of Colin Vallon (piano), Bänz Oester (bass) and Norbert Pfammatter (drums). Vallon had moved her to play songs from her home country - but which she was hardly familiar with from childhood, as her parents despised the folk music propagated by the communist system.

The music of the quartet - in which Patrice Moret has been playing bass since 2012 - is shaped by Duni's vocals. In 2008 the band released their first CD and toured half of Europe. They also played at the Willisau Jazz Festival and the Grenoble Jazz Festival . The third CD of the Matanë Malit quartet , which was released in 2012, was produced by the record label ECM , as was the CD Dallëndyshe , which was released in 2015 . In 2014, Duni's solo album Muza e Zezë ("The Black Muse") was released in Kosovo and Albania, on which she introduces herself as a singer-songwriter.

Duni also participates in other bands. The CD Lakuriq was created with the Albanian electro avant-garde pop band Retrovizorja , and Duni can be heard as a guest on André Manoukian's Melanchology . She also realizes various solo projects.

With the band project Aksham , she has been realizing a convergence of tempered jazz and poetry in a quintet line-up since 2018. The singing is in English and French. The poetic texts come from James Joyce , Paul Verlaine and yourself. A first album with the same title came out in 2019 on Nome. The compositions are partly worked out by the whole band, mostly by Duni, pianist Marc Perrenoud or trumpeter David Enhco . An appearance with the album material was recorded at the Cully Jazz Festival and broadcast by Deutschlandfunk Kultur on September 2, 2019.

Awards

Concert in Wil with Patrice Moret in the background (2011)

In 2005 Duni received the special prize of the jury in Tirana for the CD Lakuriq with the group Retrovizorja . In 2007 she was the recipient of the Friedl Wald Scholarship. The following year she was awarded the Coup de cœur by the Music Commission of the Canton of Bern ; She also received a scholarship from the Bern University of the Arts for the best career entry (2008). Your quartet was selected for the priority jazz funding of Pro Helvetia 2010–2012. In 2012 she was the winner of the 15th Essen Jazz Pott . The album Partir won the Klara Award in Brussels in the category "Best International Album 2018".

Quotes

"But seldom does the ear touch a music like Baresha, like the songs of the unknown Elina Duni, who on her first album transforms Albanian, Greek and Bulgarian songs into jazz without selling herself or herself below their value."

- The time

"In general, it is astonishing how naturally two worlds come together here, far from clichéd Balkan jazz."

- Klaus von Seckendorff : Jazzthetik

"A statement for cultural wealth and against nationalism."

- Martina Läubli : NZZ

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Partir
  CH 49 05/06/2018 (2 weeks)
  • Lakuriq (2004 with Retrovizroja)
  • Baresha (2008, Meta Records)
  • Lume Lume (2010, Meta Records)
  • I Kaltër (2010 with Retrovizroja)
  • Matanë Malit (2012, ECM )
  • Muza e Zezë (2014)
  • Dallëndyshe (2015, ECM)
  • Partir (ECM, 2018)
  • Aksham (Nome, 2019) with Elina Duni - voc, David Enhco - tp, Marc Perrenoud - p, Florent Nisse - b, Fred Pasqua - dr

Web links

Commons : Elina Duni  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bio. (No longer available online.) In: elinaduni.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 ; Retrieved February 27, 2011 .
  2. ↑ a b c Martina Läubli: Jazz singer Elina Duni: Songs from the in-between . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 72 , March 27, 2017, p. 29 ( nzz.ch [accessed on March 27, 2017]).
  3. ↑ a b Ane Hebeisen: She really brings folklore from the Balkans to groove . In: Tages-Anzeiger . February 19, 2010, p. 33 .
  4. ↑ Christian Hubschmid: Black humor and paradoxical poetry . In: Sunday newspaper . February 7, 2010, p. 41 .
  5. ↑ a b Pai Seiler: Songs from the home and the heart . In: Swiss family . No. 11 , 2010, p. 16-17 .
  6. ↑ Ueli Bernays: The happy sadness . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 50 , March 2, 2010, p. 19 .
  7. ↑ Elina Duni. In: ECM Records. Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Aksham project , accessed 2 September 2019
  9. ↑ Elina Duni receives the 15th Essen “Jazz Pott” award ceremony and concert on October 18th in the Grillo Theater. In: NMZ cultural information center. September 17, 2012, accessed February 11, 2014 .
  10. ↑ Best international cd world: Partir - Elina Duni , klara.be, accessed May 28, 2019
  11. ↑ Poetry without a home. In: The time. Retrieved February 27, 2011 .
  12. ^ Klaus von Seckendorff: Soundtracks March + April 2010. Elina Duni Quartet. (No longer available online.) In: Jazzthetik. 2010, archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on February 1, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Charts CH
  14. ↑ Meeting (AllAboutJazz)
personal data
SURNAME Duni, Elina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Albanian-Swiss jazz singer, songwriter and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH Tirana