TIRANA, May 25 – Albanian and regional folklore bands will gather in Permet, southern Albania, for three days this weekend to celebrate cultural diversity among the country’s minorities in the 15th edition of Multicultural Permet festival.
The festival scheduled for May 26 to 28 will showcase cultural diversity in the country, bringing together several folklore bands from central and southern Albania, but also neighbouring Greece in an annual traditional event supported by France-based International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts (IOFF).
Permet was selected as a host because of its diversity as a town where different cultures and ethnicities coexist and as the hometown of Albanian folk music including late maestro Laver Bariu, but also to promote cultural tourism in a region also famous for its cultural heritage and rafting on Vjosa River and the Lengarica Canyon.
Albania’s iso-polyphony tunes have been placed under UNESCO protection as “a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.”
