Serenade player Devi Becolli/ The artist who makes the Devolli area proud

2024-04-30 13:46:00, Kulturë CNA

Devi Becolli

Korça is known for tradition, culture and more for serenade. Although it is said that Korça is the city of serenades, it seems that the deep roots of this music are in Ziçisht and the town of Devolli.

We have often heard this fact from the residents of this district, but it is still not proven. However, the Devolli area has a number of very special characters who keep the serenade tradition alive. And not just the serenade, but those old songs that were created years ago, and you don't even know the author or the creator.

In the next report, Cna Tv viewers will be introduced to a special profile of the serenatist. Exactly with Devi Becolli, in life with a completely different profile, with the profession of economist, while with the passion to sing serenades and play the guitar for more than 15 years.

Devi Becolli is the artist who is making the Devolli area proud, it is enough to have a guitar in his hand and there he highlights his talent to play this instrument and to sing serenades so beautifully.

Devi says that since 2009, this beautiful journey of his has started, with a different flow than the daily routine, becoming part of the group of serenaders of Bilishti. He learned the guitar among them, from time to time "stealing" a little of their craft, chords or sounds.

"They were very beautiful. Somewhere in the years 2009-2010, that's when I started to join the group of serenaders of Bilishti where I started singing with them. Then, after that moment learning, stealing some sound or some chord from them , we started to become even more popular outside of Bilishti, even in Korça and beyond. It's a real pleasure to sing about the serenade, it's a rare thing, it's not commercialism, it's natural the heart, it comes from the soul, it's really beautiful, believe me", he said.

The emotions that the serenade evokes are endless and indescribable for the artist Becolli. Here he emphasizes the great importance and value of a serenade song. Songs written many years ago, that even the creator cannot be found and in the end it remains written by the people.

"Endless emotions. Especially the part of those songs when I ask who wrote this song, who wrote this poem and everyone shrugs their shoulders saying that they don't know. It remains that the people wrote it. Imagine how old they are those poems are pearls. In the middle of a song you can hear a 40-year-old story", said the artist.

Every singer has a song very close to his heart, maybe because of the story it has, maybe because of the joy or pain it conveys. When we ask Dev what his favorite song is, he says he can't tell them apart.

"This is a question that I often get and I have the standard answer, the same. I can't separate them! They are very beautiful. One more beautiful than the other. How much you sing one, you remember the other, you can't separate them, it's impossible. Each song has its own uniqueness, its own text and its own story. It's impossible to separate it," he said.

The group of singers from Bilishti is one of the most special groups that the southeast has. All members of the group have different professions in life, someone is an economist like Becolli, another is a pharmacist, a translator, and this makes this group stand out from the others. They make music for pleasure and the greatest joy for them is when others enjoy listening to them sing.

"The coincidence is that none of the members of the group is a real singer. One is an economist, one a lawyer, one a translator, one a pharmacist. And this is the detail that makes us stand out and makes us somehow more special," he said.

Each of them definitely has a guitar in the trunk of the car, and this is because wherever they go in different environments, people who know them ask them to sing. Their events are very frequent, not only on the weekend, but also during the evenings of the weekdays, it is enough to be 2 of the members of the group to create the atmosphere and others are added to the table.

It seems that in recent years, the serenade has undergone changes, more specifically in the texts and words that year after year have been transformed a little bit. But Devi Becolli says that the serenade must be sung as long as it is original, otherwise you cannot be called the one who sings it. Together with the group of Bilishti, he tries to preserve the old tradition, the style of the song, its original lyrics, in order to convey to the elderly the same emotion they once had in their youth.

"So you can't interfere with the serenade. If you're going to keep it for what it is and what people want to hear it for. If you're going to change it, you have the opportunity, but the originality should not be disturbed, and this characterizes us as a group that tries to preserve that tradition, the style of the song, the lyrics and the music that people older than my age have heard and listen to in the same form. You changed them, it doesn't make them feel comfortable," he said.

Ziçisht village is among the first where the serenade was sung in Devoll. For Dev, two characters are quite dear to him, people whom he calls emblems, and from whom he has learned a lot.

"Two emblems. The first one was uncle Nashoja, who is no more, he can hear us from above now. We learned many, many songs from him, a very good old man from Ziçishti, from whom I learned many old songs. And the second one we have among us is Papa Viktori, the priest of Ziçishti. He also has the same profile as a carpenter. He is a priest, but he sings .

People like Devi Becolli are few in number not only in the Devolli area, but also in Korça. Such artists have inherited from the old the passion for serenade and today they convey wonderful emotions between the melodious voice, inspiring everyone who likes it. It is lucky for Albania to keep alive the old tradition with original songs that show the priceless values ??of an area./ CNA