Dr. Assoc. Professor ENO KOÇO

Eno Koço was born in Tirana, the capital of Albania, into a musical family. His father was a baritone and his mother a prominent soprano with an international reputation. He began violin studies at the age of seven, first in Tirana and then in Leningrad before graduating in 1966. He played the violin with the Tirana Opera Orchestra for six years and taught at the Tirana Conservatory and Music School where he made his official conducting début. He was then appointed conductor of the Albanian Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra with whom he toured Yugoslavia and Turkey. He also conducted the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in Egypt and was attached to the RAI Orchestra and Regio Opera in Turin, Italy. In 1984 the Albanian state nominated him Honoured Artist.
       Eno Koço now lives in Leeds, and conducts throughout Britain. He has been the principal conductor of the orchestra of the School of Music in the University of Leeds for more than 15 years, directing many major works including recordings of music by V. Williams, Tippet and Philip Wilby. He has worked with several local orchestras and choirs such as the York Symphony Orchestra, Harrogate Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia of Leeds, The City of Leeds Youth Orchestra, Yorchestra, Rhodian Brass Band, Ilkley Cantores etc. Outside Britain he maintains regular contact with several musical institutions of the Balkan countries, such as the Albanian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the Tirana and Skopje Opera Theatres, George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, Music Academy in Wroclaw and Philharmonia of Kosova.
       He was awarded his PhD in 1998. He has made several programmes on the music of Albania for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC World Service. He gave papers on the same theme at different universities (Limerick, Leeds, London, Palermo) and other conferences/symposiums (Golem, Struga). Koço is the author of Treatise on Orchestration (SHBLSH, Tirana 1977), Tefta Tashko Koço and her contemporaries (Dituria, Tirana 2000), Albanian Urban Lyric Song in the 1930s (Toena, Tirana 2002), Korçare Distinctive Song (Toena, Tirana 2003), periodical articles published between 1970 and 1991 and from 1998 onwards.
        In 2004 he published the book Albanian Urban Lyric Song in the 1930s (Scarecrow Press, Inc.) as well as several articles in Albanian and English published in Kultura Popullore, Studia Albanica and Perla. In 2005 he published articles A Family of Song: Reflections of Albanian Urban Lyric (for Scarecrow Press), Shostakovich, Kadaré and the nature of dissidence: an Albanian view (for The Musical Times). His last book in Albanian is Shostakovich and Kadare–Articles on Albanian Art Music (Uegen, Tirana 2005). Another book in preparation is Vocal Iso(n).
        He has made numerous recordings of Albanian music, instrumental and vocal and his four CDs featuring Albanian Music Classics (vocal and orchestral) have been released in 2005 and 2006. In
        February 2005 he was nominated as an Associate Professor from the Academy of Arts in Tirana. He appears in the late international editions of Who’sWho in the World, International Biographical Centre (Cambridge) and ABI (American Biographical Institute).