The Swiss Jazz Award 2025 goes to Elina Duni

An artist with an intense and refined voice, now under contract with the prestigious ECM Records: Elina Duni is being honored “for her extraordinary talent and ability to create a poetic and exciting musical language, carefully combining jazz and the traditional music of her homeland.” With an emphasis on how Elina Duni has “managed to renew the language of jazz, inspiring a whole generation of young musicians with whom she has often collaborated.”

Born in Tirana in 1981 into a family of artists, Elina Duni began performing when she was only five years old for Albanian Radio and TV. After the fall of the communist regime, she moved to Geneva with her mother, where she studied classical piano before dedicating her studies to jazz. At the HKB, Hochschule der Künste in Bern, she perfected her training, studiying and focusing on composition and improvisation.

During those years she founded the Elina Duni Quartet with Colin Vallon (piano), Patrice Moret (double bass) and Norbert Pfammatter (drums), creating a project capable of fusing jazz with the evocative sounds of Balkan folk.

2012 marked the move to ECM Records, under which Duni released two albums that won European critical acclaim: Matanë Malit (2012) and Dallëndyshe (2015). In 2017 she began a new collaboration with guitarist Rob Luft, with whom she recorded Partir (2018), an album in which she also shows her qualities as a multi-instrumentalist. Partir was followed by Lost Ships (2020) and A Time To Remember (2023), both recorded with Rob Luft, Fred Thomas, and well-known flugelhornist Matthieu Michel, two albums highly praised by the press.

One of the most interesting artists of the contemporary jazz scene, winner of the Swiss Music Prize 2017 and numerous other European awards, Elina Duni will perform in Ascona on June 28 after the award presentation. An exceptional quintet is joining her on stage: Rob Luft (guitar), Matthieu Michel (flugelhorn), Patrice Moret (bass) and Corrie Dick (drums).

Established in 2007, the Swiss Jazz Award is presented annually as part of JazzAscona (June 25-July 5, 2025). Recent winners include Bruno Spoerri (2017), Franco Ambrosetti (2018), Othella Dallas (2019), Nolan Quinn (2022), Christoph Grab (2023) and the Swiss Jazz Orchestra (2024).

Elina Duni – Awards and honors

2025 – Swiss JazzAward (Ascona, Switzerland)
2020 – Presto Music Award per Lost Ships (Londra, Regno Unito)
2019 – Klara Award per Partir (Bruxelles, Belgium)
2017 – Swiss Music Prize
2015 – Diaspora Award, Kosovo Embassy (Berne, Switzerland)
2013 – Kult Prize per Matanë Malit (Tirana, Albania)
2012 – Jazz Pott Prize (Essen, Germany)
2010 – Pro Helvetia “Priority Jazz” (Switzerland)
2008 – HKB Prize (Berne, Switzerland)
2008 – “Coup de Coeur” (Berne, Switzerland)
2007 – Friedl Wald Prize (Switzerland)