Imer Traja Brizani

Imer Traja Brizani is a Roma composer, bassist, singer and musicologist, born in 1958 in Priština, Kosovo, who has lived and worked in Slovenia since 1980. His music joins Romani tradition with jazz, ethno, funk and orchestral music, and he leads the ensemble Amala.

Music was in the family: his father, Uka Brizani, was a trumpeter and an important figure in the musical life of Priština from 1953 to 1987. Imer learned the mandolin, guitar, double bass, flute and piano as a boy and has composed since 1972. In Priština he trained as a dental technician and studied stomatology while studying the double bass, and from 1982 to 1985 he attended jazz workshops in Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Germany.

After moving to Slovenia in 1980 he first wrote and played with the groups Amadeus and Black & White, beginning as a bassist in Slovenian pop groups before making his name in jazz. He has played with jazz musicians such as Jože Privšek and Peter Erskine. In 1996 he founded Amala, which plays Romani music with jazz at jazz and ethno festivals in Slovenia and abroad, from Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine to Croatia, North Macedonia and Austria. He has released more than 15 albums of his own music, among them Dudum (2000), Suita Romani (2004), For You, Stekleno jabolko (2009), For My People (2010) and Gipsy Flamenco (2013), several of them with the Big Band of RTV Slovenija and with Ferus Mustafov.

He was the first Roma musician to give portrait concerts with the RTV Slovenija Big Band and Symphony Orchestra, in 2008, 2011 and 2013, and every year around World Roma Day on 8 April he presents a concert at Cankarjev dom. He also wrote Stekleno jabolko (The Glass Apple), the first Slovene Romani musical, and a book on Roma history, Le ostanite, Romi gredo. In 2010 he graduated in musicology in Ljubljana with a thesis on his father's work.

His awards include a Grand Prix at the Ciechocinek festival in Poland (1998) and a lifetime achievement award from the Croatian Roma association Kali Sara (2016). In 2026 Amala marked thirty years with a concert at Križanke during the Ljubljana Festival, with guests including Alenka Godec and Oto Pestner.