Elina Duni

Elina Duni (b. March 1981, Tirana, Albania) is a Swiss-Albanian jazz singer. She was born into an artistic family: her mother Bessa Myftiu and grandfather Mehmet Myftiu are both writers, and her father Spiro Duni is an actor and theatre director. Elina Duni made her first steps on stage as a singer at the age of five and began studying the violin. From 1986 to 1991, she participated in several children’s festivals and sang for the National Albanian Radio and Television. In 1992 she settled in Geneva, Switzerland with her mother. Between 2004 and 2008 she studied singing and composition at the Hochschule der Künste in Bern, in the jazz department. During this time she started the Elina Duni Quartet with Colin Vallon on piano, Patrice Moret on double bass and Norbert Pfammatter on drums, which represents a return to her musical sources, a combination of Balkans folk songs and jazz. In 2008 the CD Baresha, the first album of the Elina Duni Quartet, was released on Meta Records. This first musical departure with her quartet received marvelous acclaims from the German and Swiss press and is followed by European tours and festivals.