In the recent years Martin Hafizi has been living in the Netherlands where he has held a series of concerts. The Bulgarian audience knows him from various projects – Uvira/Bruno/ Hafizi Trio, Via macis, etc. Now, the percussionist presents for the first time his Half Easy Trio in his debut author’s album Dark and Bright.

The project dates back to March-April 2018 and has developed even better than I expected, Martin says. We received a very prestigious award at the Keep an Eye The Records in Amsterdam. Only 7 bands out of all 47 advanced to the finals and three of them won a prize- a budget of EUR 10,000 to release an album. Our album is ready, but we have not presented it officially yet. I wanted to avoid the cliché to name the band after me, but I wanted my name to be somehow present in the name of the album. That is why I chose the name Half Easy. Besides, I have realized over the years that good and bad, light and dark walk hand in hand in life

In his collection of music awards Martin has dozens of first prizes from international competitions. He won some of them at a very early age.

In Bulgaria, I studied in the classes of Maria Palieva at the National School of Music Lyubomir Pipkov. I would not change that time for anything. I would get to nowhere without this preparation. Later, it was time to face a new challenge and I departed to Rotterdam. I have lived there for seven years and spent six years in the jazz and pop departments of the Codarts where I graduated bachelors and master’s degrees. Meanwhile, I met many musicians, including the bass guitarist of Half Easy trio Johannes Fend (Austria). We met on the stage at a concert organized in the last minute. The concert went quite well and we decided to play again together. We like each other a lot not only as musicians, but as people as well. Franz von Chossy is from Germany and lectures at the music conservatory where I used to study. He is a very famous pianist and is always busy. I had to take a difficult decision whether to invite him to our band, because I did not know whether he would accept, but fortunately he agreed. He is a wonderful musician and great person.

Martin does not want to give a precise definition of the style of his compositions, yet he told us that it was influenced by many music styles-several varieties of jazz, contemporary classical music and some Bulgarian folklore elements.

I do not quote specific folklore patterns in the plays. I was looking for more general influence, Martin specifies. The piece where you can feel the influence of the Bulgarian folklore the most is named Folks’ Meadow. There are two songs with mirror titles and content – Bright is Dark and Dark is Bright which are similar and embody the balance and harmony in life. I would like to mention that the time when I composed most pieces coincided with one of the most difficult periods of my life. I went through many changes, but we had to meet certain deadlines after we won the music competition. Sometimes, I was not in a mood to compose at all and I was struggling with myself. This was the time when I wrote the piece Me vs mE. Schizo is the first thing I wrote for this trio. It is a song of contrasts and tells us that in one moment you have too much thoughts on your mind, then you find peace for some time and later everything repeats all over again.

We cannot skip a personal fact of the biography of the talented musician. His grandmother Maria Hafizi and his father worked for many years as translators and radio hosts at the Albanian language section of Radio Bulgaria. His mother took part in the preparation of the broadcasts as sound engineer for many years. Dark and Bright album will be officially presented on December 7 in the famous Bimhuis hall. Later, the musicians will hold a concert in Rotterdam, Belgium and Germany. I hope we will soon come to Bulgaria, because I love to play for my country, Martin says.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov