Tish Daija was a prominent Albanian composer and musician. His creativity is vast and varied. He created music of all kinds, and wrote in all musical genres such as: operas, ballets, symphonies, instrumental and vocal works, poems, folk and light songs, children’s songs, etc. For all his great and successful activity, he has been honored with the high title “People’s Artist” as well as with the title “Professor”.
He is remembered as the creator of the first Albanian ballet, “Halili and Hajria”, which was put on stage for the first time in 1963.

He was born on January 30, 1926, in a family of well-known artisans from Shkodra. When he was a student in the third year of primary school, he became a member of the musical band “Antoniane” directed by the great, masterful and unforgettable inspiration Prenke Jakova. Here in this group he started to play the clarinet, saxophone and some other instruments. His first compositions on motifs of the Shkodra folk song under the influence of oriental music are also from this age, which retain the values of the age.

In 1939, when he was only 13 years old, he created some beautiful songs such as “Beautiful maid”, “Stay with me girl”, “Glittering eyes”, etc., which are still sung today in Shkodra and that still retain their freshness, and they have even become so popular that they have almost lost their authorship.

The folk songs of Tish Daija are earlier than those of Prenk Jakovo and Gjon Simoni and anyone else.
During the war, Tish Daija continued his studies at the Franciscan high school and at the same time, he was also involved in the creation of popular songs. He finished the last two years of school in 1945-1946 at the city gymnasium. Immediately after finishing school in 1946, he was appointed a music teacher in Vlora, the city that gave him so many youthful joys. In 1951, Tish Daija, after being denied a scholarship to Israel in 1947, went to the famous “Tchaikovsky” Conservatory in Moscow.
He graduated in 1956 for composition. During this time, he wrote a series of works full of inspiration, such as: “String quartets, the children’s suite “A picnic day”, Victory Overture, etc. After his studies, he was appointed to the Ministry of Education and Culture for 6 years, where he provided valuable assistance in the field of musical art.

In 1962 he was appointed to the Ensemble of Folk Songs and Dances. For nearly two decades, as the artistic leader of this Ensemble, he gave a series of successful concerts that made him known all over the world. He accompanied the Ensemble to many countries around the world, comparing our art with world art. From 1962 until the end of the 90s, he was an external lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts. Tish Daija died on October 3, 2003.

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