Vako - the maestro who raised choral singing in Albania to another level

The first generation of professional musicians of Albania after the Second World War has been left without the conductor Milto Vako. He died on Tuesday at the age of 90. The news of Vako's death has been commented on as a sign that Albanian music has lost one of its great professionals. Vako's legacy, according to the Academy of Sciences of Albania and the Theater of Opera and Ballet, will remain a valuable part of Albania's musical history.

Born in Pogradec on March 30, 1930, Vako graduated from the artistic secondary school "Jordan Misja" in 1952 and in the years 1952-1956 continued his higher studies at the conservatory "PI Tchaikovsky" in Moscow, where he graduated as a choir conductor. under the direction of the world-renowned professor, Alexander Sokolov. According to the biography written by the Academy of Sciences of Albania, immediately after his studies, Vako was appointed conductor in the State Ensemble of Folk Songs and Dances, being the right hand of the composer Česk Zadeja, who artistically led the Ensemble founded in 1957.

"Milto Vako's work for conducting the AKVP choir, especially for giving life to the creations of Albanian composers, will be remembered for a long time. It was he who introduced the first standards of professional choral singing in AKVP and who fundamentally influenced the national and international achievements and successes of this Ensemble", the Academy of Sciences has evaluated the figure of Vako.

The conductor also performed other duties related to teaching at the Artistic High School and the Higher Institute of Arts. With the strengthening of the ideological control in the field of arts, in 1973, he was first interned and then arrested and sentenced for agitation and propaganda, serving his sentence in the prison of Tepelena, then in that of Ballshi, until 1982. Vako himself in a 2015 interview for Julia Vrapin had said that after a performance was prepared at the Theater of Opera and Ballet, he was told that he had very modern and liberal views on art, and that he was to blame. It was the time when the monist government headed by Enver Hoxha had put art on the path of socialist realism and it was mainly used for propaganda in the service of the leadership.

"They took me to Tepelena where I worked in agriculture, but after two years they arrested me, calling me as if I was a collaborator with Fadil Paçrani. I spent 7 years in prison in Ballsh. When I finished prison, I came to Tirana, worked in the school administration as a plumber. In 1990, I was called to the Academy of Arts and I started working", Vako confessed.

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In 1990 he would first engage in the Orthodox Church Choir, to continue as a lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Arts.

According to the description made by the Theater of Opera and Ballet, Vako is one of the honored names of Albanian art in the field of choral conducting.

"As the leader of the AKVP choir, together with the troops, he achieved successes that have remained in the memory of the public at home and abroad", it is written in the announcement of TOB. The choir under his direction was the winner of the "Golden Necklace" in Dijon, France. Vako, as master of the TOB choir, professionally prepared works such as "Mrika" (1966), "Heroina" (1967), "Skënderbeu" (1968), and others. The conductor is one of the founders of the State Conservatory of Tirana, where together with other well-known figures such as Česk Zadeja, Albert Paparisto, Hamide Stringa and Mustafa Krantja, they gave life to the school of Albanian music.

In the 2015 interview, he said that Albanian music is a masterpiece. But there was a problem in relation to creativity which, according to him, was elite.

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"Here I am talking about works of art and our music is very beautiful, but unfortunately our music is no longer being heard. This is because no work is done, the institutions show no interest. They are very passionate about new things. This is wrong, because everything has its place. But, the value of the classic is also falling. We don't have enough Albanian works", he said. He was also disappointed with regard to Albanian light music. He had said that without wanting to offend anyone, the Greeks and Serbs had preserved their music, but the Albanians not so much.

"When you listen to an Albanian song today, you can hardly tell that it is Albanian, there are songs that do not agree with each other. But, here are not all the songs, as we also have songs that are good", he said. Vako is the author of the professional books "Choral Creativity", "Working with the Choir and Vocal Techniques" and "Theory of Solfege and Harmony". As an 85-year-old, he had said that the level had fallen in the Popular Ensemble. "The National Ensemble was destroyed because earlier there were other sizes, the Army Ensemble was destroyed. AKKVP today is a miniature, it's a shame, there is no interest from the state to appreciate, help, sponsor it", said Vako, who, with the reasoning that "the time was like that", had never spoken about his arrest.