Gjirokastra folklore festival to make comeback in April 2015

“The organization of the National Folklore Festival in 2015 in Gjirokastra targets the preservation, protection and promotion of our best values in non-material heritage, ethno-musical, ethno-chorographical, ethnographic, folklore costumes and instruments, rites, traditions, crafts, culinary values established since centuries,” says Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro.
TIRANA, Sept. 8 – Artists from Albania, the region and the Albanian Diaspora will participate in the tenth edition of the Gjirokastra folklore festival, one of the most important cultural heritage events held in the southern UNESCO town every five years since the late 1960s under communism.
“This event will be the best presentation of the Albanian traditions, culture and folklore through traditional values introduced through folklore costumes, music, lyrics and many other events,” says the Culture Ministry about the festival which serves to protect and promote the non-material cultural heritage.
“The organization of the National Folklore Festival in 2015 in Gjirokastra targets the preservation, protection and promotion of our best values in non-material heritage, ethno-musical, ethno-chorographical, ethnographic, folklore costumes and instruments, rites, traditions, crafts, culinary values established since centuries,” said Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro.
The festival scheduled to be held from April 4 to 9 2015 will showcase 12 groups representing Albania’s regions, three groups from Kosovo, two from Albanians in Macedonia and one from the Albanian minority in Montenegro. Albanian bands in Italy, the United States, Greece, Turkey and Switzerland will also participate in the festival.
Scheduled to be held in April 2015, the festival will feature 1,200 artists introducing the best of Albanian folklore.
The first folk festival was organized in 1968 and since then has brought more and more artists in every edition from Albania, but also from around the world.
“The festival is the best offering of Albanian traditions, including music, instruments, folk art and colourful costumes. One of the highlights of this festival is the iso-poliphony style of Albanian folk singing, which has been selected by UNESCO as an “intangible cultural heritage,” says the Western Balkans Geotourism Mapguide about the festival.
The local fortress and the town’s historic centre, both part of the UNESCO World Heritage list, will be the two venues of the festival which returns after its last 2009 edition.
Inscribed on UNESCO as a rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period, Gjirokastra, in the Drinos river valley in southern Albania, features a series of outstanding two-story houses which were developed in the 17th century. The town also retains a bazaar, an 18th-century mosque and two churches of the same period. The 13th-century citadel provides the focal point of the town with its typical tower houses.
The historic town of Gjirokastra is a rare example of a well-preserved Ottoman town, built by farmers of large estates. The architecture is characterized by the construction of a type of tower house (Turkish ‘kule’), of which Gjirokastra represents a series of outstanding examples, according to UNESCO.
The history, culture and traditions of Gjirokastra and its Drino valley are featured in the newest museum that has opened at the southern Albanian town which has been under UNESCO protection since 2005. Situated in the indoor premises of the local Argjiro fortress, the museum documents Gjirokastra’s 2000-year-old history, bringing evidence of the life of its inhabitants, its most prominent figures and archaeological remains discovered in the Drino Valley, especially in the Hadrianapoilis Park.