Mr. VASIL S. TOLE (b. 1963) graduated in composition from the Faculty of Music at the Academy of Arts in Tirana, Albania, in 1987, in the class of Prof. Kozma Lara. After working for three years as the artistic director at “Shtëpia e Kulturës” (House of Culture) in his hometown, Përmet, he was appointed in 1991 as a professor of Albanian Music Folklore at the Faculty of Music, Academy of Arts, and then as a professor of Composition. In 1994 he presented his Ph.D. dissertation in the field of ethnomusicology entitled, “Structure and Semantics in the Instrumental Folk Music of Southern Albania.” In 1994-95, he carried out post-graduate studies in the field of Composition at Folkwang Hochschule, Essen-Germany, in the class of Prof. Wolfgang Hufschmidt and in 1996 carried out postdoctoral studies in the Department of Musicology at the University of Athens, Greece. In 2000, he was named Associate Professor at the Faculty of Music, Academy of Arts, and in 2004, Professor.
As an active representative of the new generation of the Albanian composers, Vasil S. Tole is known as one of the main protagonists of change, an initiator of new creative alternatives, one of the most decisive supporters of the concept for the restructuring of the subject of Albanian folk music, serving to the identification of the identity and novelties in contemporary music. Simultaneously, he dedicates himself to broad activities in related studies and journalism. He also participates in numerous music contests, conferences, and roundtables in Albania, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Canada, and the USA. He cooperates with artistic and research newspapers and magazines, as well as with Albanian radio and television. He has authored many journalistic writings and monographies on music, and has won important awards at the national and international level, including First Prize in Composition “Dimitris Mitropoulos” in Athens 2001, with the opera “Eumenidet.” With colleagues at the Academy of Arts, he initiated the foundation and management of the association “Muzikës së Re Shqiptare” (1993), the Albanian section of “The Rilm Abstract Literature of Music”, New York (1995), and the Albanian section of CIOFF-it (1996). He has chaired the Albanian Music Council since 1995, is member of the National Council of Music, Paris, as well as SEM-USA, and Gema-Germany. From 1997 to 1999, he was the Director of the Albanian National Theatre of Opera and Ballet. From 2001-2007, he was the Director of the Cultural Heritage Directorate in the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports. In 2005, he met all the obligations as an expert of ethnomusicology to prepare the file of the Albanian folk iso-polyphony, proclaimed by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of Oral Heritage of Humanity.” In 2008, he was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Albania, in 2013 as a scientific secretary, and in 2019 as the Deputy Chairperson of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.