The violin in the traditional music of southern Albania (ISO-VIO)
Person(s) in charge
Team
Hajer Ben Boubaker
Partners
Académie des Sciences d’Albanie (ASA) – Institut d’Anthropologie
Start date: 2026
Presentation of the project
The ISO-VIO project explores the unique role of the violin in Albanian drone-based polyphony (isopolifoni (Sokoli 1981; Shituni 1989)), a vocal and instrumental practice inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Although the violin plays a central role in saze ensembles (Kruta 1969; Tole 1998) and in the instrumental form known as kaba, it remains largely understudied. The question this project will explore is as follows: what is the relationship between folk music and art music composition for the violin in Albania, and how has this composition helped shape the characteristics of the national music school? This represents one of the most remarkable examples in Europe of the transformation of folk musical material into art music. This project, carried out in collaboration between the Geneva University of Music and the Albanian Academy of Sciences, aims to document and analyse these practices through fieldwork (archives, recordings, interviews), the creation of a bilingual thematic glossary, and a comparison with contemporary Albanian classical music. ISO-VIO will bring together researchers and musicians to produce academic and educational publications, organise conferences and workshops, and promote this heritage through concerts. By preserving and disseminating this knowledge, the project will contribute to the intergenerational transmission and international influence of Albanian polyphony.
