Workshops

One of the things happening at the Shkodra Jazz are the workshops with the music students of the local high school of arts. The lessons take place at a class on the second floor of this Preke Jakova High School, which tends to be jam-packed with teenagers and a handful of their teachers, listening to explanations of the new musical genres by artists attending the festival.

I heard, for example, that Brazilian pianist Roberto Hasbun had explained the slow and low volume bossa nova with the fact that it was developed in poor areas packed with houses with very thin walls. Any time musicians wanted to get loud, the neighbors would complain. Hence, the bossa nova.

I attended the one held yesterday by Javier Galiana and Spice Barberechos, a band that played later in the evening at Shkodra’s main concert hall, the Migjeni Theater. This was the typical classroom filled in with hormone high teenagers. Professors would sit in front of the musicians. The second and third row of chairs were filled in with students who seemed to be interested in what went around, while the last two rows were with mostly boys interesting in making some noise.

Galiana, who explained the flamenco rhythm, and how he fuses flamenco into jazz, also induced the children to do the las palmas, the constant clapping that is used to maintain the beat during flamenco singing. Even the singing, of Carlos Denias Moreno, provoked some laughter in the back row – this is an atypical way of singing in this part of the world – but the two tunes that the band played were good and caught the attention of the teenagers.

 

There was some hilarity. While Galiana, who is a pianist and composer, was trying to explain one specific rhythm and how it was fused with blues, one professor of the school, of the name Rafael Shabani, jumped up from where he was sitting on the first row, and turned to students, as if he wanted to explain to them what the Spanish musician was saying. But he was off the mark, he was saying something like “Music is constant processing and refining of material,” and he was jittery. I thought he was trying to make an impression. Some students on the back said, Bravo, just for fun. It looked a bit like the unsexy part of the Italian sexy comedies of the 70s.

 

 

 

Correction, Dimitroula Mou Iassou, is indeed titled Dimitroula Mou, and sang by Haris Alexiou.