TIRANA, Feb. 11- Tirana’s Metropol Theatre has launched the Metro Sounds- A Mediterranean Tale, a musical festival to take place during Feb.. Renowned musicians from Italy, Turkey, Greece, and also Albania will play at Metropol’s stage for the public of Tirana. An artistic program is built to put us in contact with our Mediterranean identity and belonging. Thus the festival takes the aforementioned undertitle. As such, the program will be bringing pieces of culture from our closest neighbors as a form of cultural evaluation and dialogue through music.
The festival started on Feb. 9 with renowned cello player Redi Hasa, accompanied by Rachele Andrioli in drums and Rocco Nigro in accordion. Hasa has been living and working in Italy, but his activities extend to Londoner and American stages. The festival will last until Mar. 9th, and each weekend a new concert will take place.
The second musical event will introduce Italian artist Mario Mariani, who is a composer, a pianist, and an interpreter renowned for his unusual sounds. His style elapses from contemporary music to theatrical shows, or film soundtracks, such as in Cannes, Venice, New York and Berlin. Mariani’s artistic core is rooted in the improvised music, who oftenwise perform with other musicians, artists, actors or entertainers.
Following, the third week is dedicated to Turkey. A group of artists, among which Enver Muhamedi, an Albanian from Mitrovica, will give a jazzy sounding concert at Metropol. Pianist Etibar Asadli, together with Ekin Cengizkan and Muhamedi, touch jazz music with ethnic sound motifs from Albania, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Asadli creates compositions and rearrangements of folk sounds from the three countries. Rhythms and melodies from the three countries are intertwined under the shadow of the mosques of the former eastern world metropolis of 15 centuries. Cultures are merged and interacted in a new sound, Metro Sound Oriental.
The fourth week the stage will introduce the Alcedo Folk Band, from Greece. This emerging folk band brings new sounds and bold suggestions in familiar and unfamiliar songs, with musical colors like the wings of an Alkyon, and tracks always straight from Vasilis Tsitsanis to Johann Sebastian Bach. The Greek Culture Now writes that “where the Ottoman Lunga meets the medieval cantatas, Alcedo will meet their friends singing a warm, different Winter.”
The Metro Sounds festival will be enclosed by two concerts held from the Tirana Ensemble. Along the festival, the Metropol Theatre will also organize the “Scriptum n’Sonus” poetic nights each Thursday. These evenings will bring pieces from the best Mediterranean poets and authors. Along the verses of the literature, these evenings will be accompanied by sounds and projections.
