Career
Essentially self-taught in his early years, he became the first significant Albanian composer to study exclusively in his home country, entering the newly founded Tirana Conservatory in 1962 and studying there with Daija until 1966. His most significant post was as music secretary of the Union of Albanian Writers and Artists (1977-1991). He later also served as director of the Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Tirana (1991-1992).
From 1992 until his death he taught theory and composition at the Tirana Conservatory.
As music secretary during Albania’s period of cultural isolation, Ibrahimi showed himself a capable administrator, exerting a positive influence on Albania’s musical life. After the collapse of the communist régime he worked tirelessly to bring Albanian music into the wider European musical arena.
He founded the festival Evenings of New Albanian Music in 1992. In 1994 he founded the artistic society “Pentaton” (now Cultural Foundation “Feim Ibrahimi”), aiming to organize several cultural events and to establish a private conservatory for gifted children.
Foreign his artistic merits, in 1989, the Albanian State conferred him the title “People's Artist”, the highest artistic title in Albania.
Whereas in 2000, the town hall of Tirana conferred him the title “The gratitude of Tirana” for his contribution to the Albanian culture, and especially to the culture of the capital. In 2001, the town hall of Durrës (the city where he passed his childhood and youth) conferred him the Honorary Citizenship. In 1990, a concert-portrait, which included a lecture on his music, was organized at the Aalto Theaterfoyer, in Essen (Germany).
In 1994, at the Brahms-Gesellschaft’s invitation, he was composer-in-residence at the Brahmshaus of Baden-Baden (Germany), and immediately afterwards he studied electro-acoustic music at Mozarteum in Salzburg (Austria).
In 1995, his work De Profundis –composed during his residency in Salzburg– was selected for the festival of electro-acoustic music in Bourges, France. Ibrahimi’s music includes nearly all genres: instrumental miniatures, soundtracks, chamber music, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, symphonies, ballets and vocal works.
Dialogo for cello and piano and the romance East la tua veste è bianca (after the poem of South Quasimodo) for soprano, cello and piano (both composed in June 1997) are the last works of the composer, who died the 2 August 1997 in Turin, Italy.