Fanfara Tirana performs in European Jazz Festival

TIRANA, May 30 – Fanfara Tirana became the first Albanian band to participate in the European Jazz Festival held from May 24 to 29 in Athens. The Albanian band performed on the festival’s opening night as guests paying tribute to Balkan jazz. “A band that faithfully expresses the traditional music of Albania and the broader region with an exceptional quality,” stated Greek jazz websites with regard to Fanfara Tirana. Fanfara Tirana is comprised of virtuoso musicians and their music is described as ethnic jazz. The band has won honors and brilliant reviews not only in Albania but in many countries throughout the world, and has built up an enthusiastic fan base throughout the whole of Europe. The Greek public first encountered the group at the Half Note Jazz Club, where they received a unanimously enthusiastic welcome, thrilling the audience with their rhythms. Fanfara Tirana is the leading wind orchestra of Albania, with a completely new and impressive approach to the country’s traditional music– providing a role model for other Balkan wind orchestras. Their melodies are based on the clarinet, sax alto, trumpet and tenor saxophone. For the eleventh consecutive year, the European Jazz Festival in “Technopolis” Athens has welcomed some of the most creative European musicians. Artists of the European jazz scene and many promising young musicians performed in the largest jazz event in Athens. Music groups from twelve countries including Hungary, Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Austria, Holland, Greece, Czech Republic, Sweden, Luxembourg and Belgium took part in the festival.
Albania also holds its own annual jazz festivals in Tirana and Shkodra.