Fjoralba Turku brings jazz quartet home

TIRANA, Oct. 10 – Albania-born Germany-based jazz singer Fjoralba Turku has returned home with her jazz string quartet to give a series of concerts as part of the German October events that are being held in Albania. The first concert by the Fjoralba Turku quarter was given on Thursday at the Black Box of the University of Arts in Tiran. Concerts will continue on Friday Oct. 12 at the Alekasander Moisiu theatre in Durres to conclude on Saturday Oct. 13 at the Skampa theater in Elbasan.
“When a singer presents her first album, you would usually call it ‘promising’. But Fjoralba Turku doesn’t need to make any promises: it’s all there. This young Albanian singer may well be the hottest new jazz discovery in the year 2010…” says a CD review for “Joshua”, Marcus A. Woelfle, hifistatement).
The critics rave: “A remarkable debut!”, and “A discovery among female jazz singers in 2010”, about the singer Fjoralba Turku, who released her first CD, “Joshua”, one and a half years ago. Certainly, this was early praise for the promise she had made to transfer the songs and the language of her native country, Albania, into the cosmos of jazz, using her unexpectedly powerful and astonishingly mature voice. Astonishment is now turning into enthusiasm: Fjoralba Turku’s second album, “Serene”, confirms the praise and great expectations. She impressively demonstrates her greatest talent: Telling stories in song.
Born in Albania, Fjoralba Turku, 30, immigrated to Munich at the age of nine. Fjoralba first studied drama and acting in Munich and Paris. But it was during her time in Paris that she had a life-changing encounter with the jazz singer Carole Simone: Turku’s slumbering talent, singing, awoke.
In 2007 Turku was accepted into the Munich Conservatory of Music (, and in the same year New York guitarist Geoff Goodman invited her to join his world music band Tabla & Strings
At age of 24, Fjoralba signed her first recording contract at Traumton Records in Berlin. Critics and audiences have been running out of superlatives to describe the experiences with Fjoralba’s recording and her stage presence.
Fjoralba finished her studies in summer 2010, recorded another CD with Geoff Goodmans new music project Jazz and Haikus in 2011, also with the duo Paulo Cardoso and Simon Seidl and between 2007 and 2012 she won prizes in Brussels and Munich.