Feim Ibrahimi

Who was Feim Ibrahimi?

Feim Ibrahimi was born on 20 October 1935 in Gjirokastër, southern Albania. Essentially self-taught in his early years, he became the first significant Albanian composer to study exclusively in his home country, entering the newly founded Tirana Conservatory in 1962 and studying there with Daija until 1966. He then taught composition, counterpoint and harmony at the conservatory, subsequently serving as vice-director of its parent body, the Superior Institute of Arts. His most significant post was as music secretary of the Union of Albanian Writers and Artists; he later also served as director of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Tirana. From 1992 until his death he taught theory and composition at the Tirana Conservatory.

As music secretary during Albania’s period of cultural isolation, Ibrahimi showed himself a capable administrator, exerting a positive influence on Albania’s musical life. Though obliged by his office to defend socialist realism, during his official travels abroad he tried, as much as was possible, to keep up with international musical developments, experimenting in secret with atonality, expressing a private interest in Xenakis as early as 1981, and inviting to Albania such avant-garde figures as Stabler. After the collapse of the communist régime he worked tirelessly to bring Albanian music into the wider European musical arena. In 1991 he was the first President of National Music’s Council. He founded the festival Evenings of New Albanian Music in 1992. In 1994 he founded the artistic society “Pentaton”, aiming to organize several cultural events and to establish a private conservatory for gifted children. Some his works are published in England by the Emerson Edition.