TIRANA, May 22 – Albanian violin virtuoso Florian Vlashi is back home this time in a concert paying tribute to modernist painter Chagall and the violin in his paintings. Vlashi, who has been living in Spain for the past two decades, returns to Tirana with a concert named after Chagall’s Green Violinist paining. The concert will be held on Saturday evening May 24 at the Academy of Arts, exactly where Vlashi graduated in the late 1980s. Invited to perform in the Days of New Albanian Music international festival, Vlashi will be performing parts from Zacharian, Tsepkolenko, Ravel, Shcnittke.
“There is no other painter who has the violin so present in his works like Chagall. This instrument is his signature, a sign of his identity,” says Vlashi, adding that he has often felt like one of Chagall’s violinists while performing outdoors in poor neighborhoods, orphanages.
Vlashi is also known as the founder of Classical Music Nights biennale which is held in his hometown of Durres.
Last year’s eighth edition brought 700 years of music in Durres, from 13th century Jan Kukuzeli to present day.
The biennale Ɏight’s of classical MusicȠwas born in 2003 in a natural manner and in just the right moment and place, as do all things that seem predestined. “Spending the holidays in my home city of Durres I would reunite every evening with my old friends from school. There, between endless talks, memories, beers and laughs, we would play the Mozart Quintets. In the end, we decided to perform these beautiful works for the public,” says Vlashi.
Florian Vlashi, the Albanian violin in Spain
Born in Durres, Florian Vlashi, 50, has been living in Spain for the past two decades. He began his study of violin at the age of 6. His father, writer and famous theatre director, Gjergi Vlashi, had a decisive role in the future of his son. Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana,
in 1989 he won the competition of soloists and symphonic orchestras of Albania. The same year, he was the director and soloist of the “Jan Kukuzeli” string orchestra with which he performed many concerts and recordings.
Since 1992, he has been a member of the OSG, studying with G. Egger, L. M
