About two decades ago, two well-known artists, Adriana and Limos Dizdari, decided to settle in Ksamil and set up a multicultural community center there. This center stands on the site where a small cultural center, completely ruined over many years of negligence, used to stand during the communist regime.
Today the center called DEA, an Albanian feminine name for the genderless version of Apollo, the important God in the Greek mythology, faces four rocky islets, the island of Corfu on the west and the magnificent shores of the Ionian Sea. But, most importantly, it comprises a contemporary performing arts theater, a 1500+ titles public library, a fine arts exhibition venue, and a small recreation center.
DEA Center Founders
Limos Dizdari is an Albanian composer. He was born on February 7, 1942 in Rusan, a small village in Delvina in the south of Albania. One of Albania’s finest ever composers, Dizdari has a wide range of works including classical music with orchestral and chamber pieces as well as pop music often drawing on themes of Albanian folk music. Throughout his long career as a composer, he has won many distinguished prizes in various artistic events. In addition to these, with some 40+ movie sound tracks, Dizdari is by far one of the most prolific composers.
A vivid advocate for the art and artists in his country, Dizdari served for two legislatures in the Parliament of Albania. A passionate art collector, he has hosted and financially supported many events in Tirana and other regions. From 1999 to 2005, Dizdari President of the National Association of Artists in Albania.
For all his work as a composer, Limos Dizdari has been awarded with the title ‘Artist with High Merits’.
Adriana Priftuli Dizdari is a distinguished Albanian piano teacher. She was born on May 27 in Hoçisht, a small village in Korça in the south-east of Albania.
After her studies in the National Conservatoire of Music and Arts in Tirana, she became a piano teacher in the well-known ‘Jordan Misja’ Music and Art school where all of the best worldwide known Albanian artists have studied. Priftuli Dizdari has also taught in the National Conservatoire of Music and Arts.
Adriana has created and compiled pedagogical piano methods for middle and high school grade students and is a member of the Albanian Institution for Pedagogical Research in Music.
In 2001, Adriana Priftuli Dizdari founded the International Festival of Music called ‘Songs of the Earth’.
In addition to her activities as an outstanding piano teacher, Priftuli Dizdari is also a published tales for children writer, short-story writer and poet.
For her highly praised contribution as a teacher she was awarded with the décoration title ‘Naim Frasheri’.
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A few months ago, a group of individuals pretending to own the place, violently forced their way into the centre, breaking the iron gate and scaring the couple. Today, these people have been given the opportunity to cut off the power and water supply and those distinguished artists have been deprived of the essential basics any human being needs to live.
On 6 October 2021, when my parents travelled to Tirana for another court proceeding, these same people invaded the Centre and placed fierce guard dogs in the grounds, to prevent even the staff from entering. All the possessions of the Dizdaris remain in the building. This has been their home for many years, and over those years they have invested over 800,000 Euros in the development and upkeep of the Centre. On October 18th, 2021 they entered back to the Centre, with the support of the police fighting their way through, to eventually find out that all art work from the Art Gallerie was gone, the library is destroyed, the stage equipment removed. More importantly, the music scores and the entire intellectual property of Limos Dizdari, which is the country’s treasure, is missing or destroyed.
The presence of these two artists in Ksamili, a poor center in a state of disarray, just 5 km away from the ancient city of Butrint, a UNESCO world heritage site, brought renewed attention to many problems of that small community, like the lack of roads and the lack of a basic urban infrastructure.
In this forgotten area of Albania, when the country was facing consecutive political turmoil, including a war in Kosovo (1999) and an armed uprising (1998), they transported 5 pianos, including a Yamaha, and set up the first internet center in Ksamili. They had to sell their own apartment in downtown Tirana to be able to provide for everything a proper community center for music and arts would need.
It became immediately the main connection with the outside world for the young generation of locals. Adriana Dizdari started to teach piano lessons to children of Ksamili, introducing tens and later hundreds of children to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin… And since then, Adriana and Limos Dizdari have spent every single penny, fighting through thick and thin, to develop music and art in the most remote southern spot of Albania.