Category: Albanian

Dina e Mel: Bërbili

December 8, 2020

The seed for Bërbili (Nightingale) was planted in 1999 when a professor asked musicology student Dina Bušić to research and record music representing her heritage. On her mother’s side she is Arbanasi, descended from eighteenth-century Albanian Catholic refugees who settled in her home town of Zadar, Croatia, when the city was a stronghold of the Venetian Republic. The descendants lost much of their culture but retained their Albanian dialect into … More Dina e Mel: Bërbili

Erza Muqoli

April 14, 2020

At 14, Erza Muqoli has already led an eventful life, her success framed by a dramatic family backstory. The heart of her biography is her incandescent voice, at once floating and penetrating, girlish and mature. She burst on the French music scene at age 9, singing on a TV talent show, which led to her joining Kids United, a vocal group formed in 2015 to promote UNICEF programs. In three years the ensemble released three number-one albums … More Erza Muqoli