Alida Hisku The ambassador of Albanian music in Germany!

Alida Hisku
Singer of the golden generation of Albanian light music of `60-`70.

“Thank you! Joy and happiness! I love you very much from my Germany!”. This was Alida Hisku on December 28, 2011, the Alida who for more than 12 years was the protagonist of festivals at RTSH!

“There are problems with creativity, because today composers turn to business in music. Composers have an ear for Arab music and an ear for European and American music, they try to steal, but the house is not maintained with borrowed flour. A stolen creativity does not live long. The people are looking for Albanian creativity and we have been like that in our time and the people have supported us. This is the reason that the songs of those years live on today, we were the soles of the people.

I feel sorry for the new generation of artists, and I want to give the message that they should make music for fun, not for fashion and career or business. Only when the music is for fun will the originality remain, make the music to please the people, not the sight. I also attended the RTSH festival and there are problems with creativity. Over the years copying in music has hurt us, but we have to value our stuff.
ALIDA HISKU (2014)

Born on June 20, 1957, in Tirana. Mrs. Hisku comes from a family of artists. Since the age of 12, she has been singing in Children’s Musical Surveys, and that’s where all her memories begin.

Alidas’ career started in 1969 at the Festival of Pioneers, where she was awarded a Gold Medal at that time, with the song “Orange Harvesters”. In her childhood career, Alida received a total of 3 Gold Medals for the songs performed.

She was only 13 years old, when her voice echoed at the Song Festival at RTSH! In fact, as a child she was competitive and received second prize, making an exception only for when she entered this festival.

Singers at that time did not sing for prizes, Alidas’ tendency was to be on the third night of the festival, because until the third night she earned the right to sing three times at the festival. This was a great achievement for her and every singer at that time. They were guided by the public, who were very excited, not because of the prices.

It was an honor to sing alongside Vaçe Zela and Alida has always been guided by her radiance.

Since she was a child, she tried to sing her songs to charm the public, even though she was a 10-year-old child.

For all readers, it should be noted that singers at that time were not taken into consideration, because they imposed on singers to take their songs to festivals. There was a committee that collected the songs and, against their wishes, shared the songs.

Whether you liked the song or not was out of the question. The songs at the festivals were chosen by Vaçe Zela, Gaqo Çako and Avni Mula, others were assigned.

With a rare quality of voice, musical talent, Alida shone for 10 years in a row! Many composers fell in love with her singing and her voice, and as if they were competing to create songs for the timbre and color of her voice! God gave her a beautiful voice and such a great artistic soul. So a star was born, a promising name in the music scene. But there came a moment, as the irony of fate sometimes brings. A moment that completely changed the direction of things in her career. It was a difficult time, difficult for art, for a creator with a free spirit like Alida.

It was a time of ideology where everyone was suspicious! All were potential enemies. The causes and triggers for accusations were also banal. This is what happened to Alida Hisku, who was plucked like a flower in the morning dew without yet blooming well.
For what, the question arises!?

For a diary, some fragments of memories and experiences, of a teenager, were enough to declare her an enemy of the system!
She was expelled from the scene in 1983. Hisku was continuing her political studies at that time and was elected to the Central Youth Committee, she had been a communist for 6 years.

After completing his studies in 1983, she was sent to practice in Konispol. Here, Alida testified that three classmates stole her diary, when she herself was invited to sing at a child’s birthday. The diary went to the party committees.

Everyone has something that they write about themselves. Her writings in the diary, although they had no address, were interpreted as following the wishes of the rulers of the time. The diary for Alida was the second part of the soul. After that theft, she will see her diary in court in 1984. The punishment was for agitation and propaganda, removal from the party, exile, banishment from music.

She was only 23 years old. It was not the removal from the stage that killed her, but the removal from the audience. This was the most terrifying.

After 1990, she emigrated abroad with her two children and had to start a new life. In Germany, she is helped by two of her friends, since she was recognized in 1981 at the congresses of the time.

In the first three years she spends in refugee camps, later he is provided with documentation and then Hisku ends up in the east of Germany, where she stays for 3 and a half years.

Alida starts working, cleaning clubs to pay the rent and other expenses. While working at the hotel, she met her husband, with whom she has a daughter. Now everything changes in Germany, she has her own business. She finished an ophthalmology school and started working as a medical assistant in her father-in-law’s and mother-in-law’s clinic because they were ophthalmologists, but Alidas’ husband, Tom, is also an ophthalmologist.

After closing the clinic, she and her husband were appointed as representatives of German optics for Arab countries and went to Dubai, where for 5 and a half years they lived in Dubai-India-Palestine-Israel, etc.

Alida Hisku has made a titanic effort to get out as much as possible better in front of her audience that loved her so much.

Alida returned to the song in 2011. Today there is no stopping her! It, with its characteristic interpretation, reflects the spirit, the nobility, and even the character of the Albanian. With her return, she realized the half-left dream! For reasons that are already known, for many years she did not have the opportunity to practice her chosen vocation.

However, since 1990 she had the opportunity to do this, but she did not do it… she remained silent… Alida testified… “There is no silence was the result of my wishes, not to be active anymore, but as a result of a punishment, by the government, of my music for 10 years. That’s how I took the path of emigration, like many other Albanian artists, and it took me, approximately, 16 years for me to get up on my feet in this new, foreign country, which brought me many difficulties to live.

Don’t forget, I took the path of the emigration, lonely, at a time when my husband left me and the whole society withdrew, that is, alone with two babies, I took the emigration`s paths and you can imagine, a woman who doesn’t know the language, doesn’t know the country, who she stands up again. …” But she returns again, titling her album “The Return” and for this she says: “The return came as a result of the explosion of feelings for music. Music is in my blood. Comes from a family of artists. My parents sang for me in the Opera and Ballet Theater. Also, the sister and brother are still Albanian music debutants.

As the situation eased a bit, the children grew up and I saw a bit of light to look into my soul so deeply for Albanian music! I gave myself as a task, supported by the encouragement of my husband’s family and two sons, to return to the stage again because I was slowly losing myself. I was forgetting who I was and who I am! And this oblivion made me think that I should return to the public and my fans of Albanian music, to give them the satisfaction that I once gave them,” she will say exactly.

“Return”, all the songs on this album have a variety and have a subject that identifies the album. The album recounts the continuity of her life since the break of 24 years. This album will do exactly the job as a glue, like a weld, of an iron that has been broken. This text of the song “Return”, with which the album opens, was written by herself and is a reflection of the 24-year period that Alida lived in emigration.

Nobody killed Alida, Alida doesn’t hate anybody, she doesn’t even hate those 3 girls who stole her diary at that time. Alida has also published a book “Die Hofnärrin des Diktatoris” which in Albanian can be translated as “Lolot e Diktatorit”. This book is an autobiography that covers the phase of her life from childhood until 2005.

She has also participated in various Student and Soldier festivals, next to the most important one, in RTSH

Awards
• 1970, 13 years old, in the 9th Festival, she receives the second prize. Composition Agim Krajka “Portret”

• 1971, 14 years old at the 10th Festival, receives the Second Prize. Text by Dritëro Agolli “E paharruara”

• 1973, at the 12th Festival she won the Second Prize with Josif Minga’s song “Agimi i kuq”

• 1974, at the 13th Festival won the First Prize with the song
“Vajzat e fshatit tim”

• 1975, at the 14th Festival, wins the First Prize with the song
“Buka e duarve tona”.

• 1976, at the 15th Festival with the song “Bisedon me popullin”, a duet with Liliana Kondakçi.

• 1979, at the 18th Festival with the song “November of Freedom”, wins the Second Prize

• 1980, at the 19th Festival, wins the Second Prize with the song “Njerezit e agimeve”

• 1981, at the 20th Festival with the song “Flaka e Betimit”, in a duet with Ema Qazim.

Participation in Festivals of Songs in TVSH:
1970 – Heroine portrait (Portret heroine) in 9th Edition.
1971 – Unforgettable (E paharruara) in 10th Edition.
1971 – Albanian Salutes (Shqiperia përshëndet) in 10the Edition.
1973 – Our Friend (Shoku ynë) in 12th Edition  
1973 – The Red Dawn (Agim i Kuq) in 12th Edition
1974 – The Girls of My Village (Vajzat e Fshatit tim) in 13th Edition 
1974 – Through our days (Neper ditët tona) in 13th Edition
1975 – Bread of our own hands (Buka e duarve tona) in 14th Edit. 
1975 – Wedding in the Village (Dasme ne fshat) in 14th Edition
1977 – The Galigat Hut (Kasollja e Galigatit) in 16th Edition
1979 – November of freedom (Nentori i lirisë) in 18th Edition 
1980 – People of the dawns (Njerezit e agimeve) in 19th Edition
1981 – You remind me of those years (Me kujton ti ato vite) in 20th Edition.

Other songs from her repertoire
“Songs of Youth”; “Lulet e basmave”; “Your beautiful eye”; “Youth guitar”

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.530724743654065&type=3

It was published on the Facebook page with the same name in 2013 and was revised several times. in the following years until September 2019.

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Albanian Cinematography in activity since 2019

Reference: 1 – The information was taken from an interview of the artist herself with the journalist Julia Vrapi in 2014 “Newspaper Today”;

2 – Various online Albanian newspapers from the years 2011-2015. Some of the photos are the contribution of the administrators of this page.

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