Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Elida Dakoli . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dr. Elida , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
As a musician, educator, and human rights activist, there is never a project that I do not find meaningful.
As a classical pianist, I interpret and communicate the soul of a composer to an audience. My music meets them at a vulnerable and open state in which they can experience beauty, introspection, or any emotion that has ever existed. As an educator, I mold the minds of younger generations and equip them with skills and tools to experience freedom of expression through music and the arts. As a human rights activist, I bring awareness about the insidious nature of Communism and the forgotten victims it has left behind and continues to create. I am fortunate that I never have doubt about the meaningful impact of my work.
However, I am currently in the midst of the two most meaningful projects of my life. The first is my school, the DFW Institute for Musical Advancement (DIMA). As a mother of three in Dallas, I saw a need for the highest quality private music instruction at my children’s school. Having grown up as the child of a politically persecuted family in Communist Albania, my music education provided the only path of expression and freedom in such a cruel regime. It provided me with discipline, confidence, passion and hope. DIMA now offers over 350 students the opportunity to find freedom through an instrument.
The second project is my work with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC). My platform as a musician has given me the opportunity to advocate for the voiceless victims of my native country and many others. My family and I were recently the subject of a documentary for the VOC’s Witness Project, bringing awareness to what my family suffered, like so many others that lived under Communist rule. I have been appointed an Ambassador for the VOC in Dallas and am currently starting their Dallas Commission.
I am finally at a point where all that I have survived and learned can be passed down to the children of my community. I can be the foundation of their freedom.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Foremost, I am a creative entrepreneur, therefore I am many things. I am a classical pianist, a professor, an author, a CEO, an activist, and I am sure I will be many more things in the future. However, it all started with the piano. I was born in Communist Albania, the most isolated and harshest regime in Europe. My family was a persecuted family, branded with a “bad biography” after my great grandfather was assassinated for his advocacy of democracy in the 1940s. When I was six, I was accepted into a prestigious music school in Albania despite the second class status of my family. By age twelve, I made my first recital debut and have subsequently performed on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including Brahms-Saal and the Rathaus in Vienna and Carnegie Hall. I am also a Mason & Hamlin Artist and exclusive recording artist for PianoDisc.
To pursue a master’s degree in piano performance, I left Europe to study at Baylor University and I later earned my Doctorate from Louisiana State University. After meeting my husband, a native Dallasite, I found my home here. I am currently on faculty at Dallas Baptist University where I founded their Arts Entrepreneurship program and I am the Founder and CEO of the Dallas Institute of Musical Advancement (DIMA) established in 2018.
Having spent years building a platform as a musician and educator to advocate for those who have suffered under communist and autocratic regimes, I have become an ambassador for Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the founder of their Dallas Commission. In 2020, I addressed the Texas Congress and successfully passed a law that dedicated a day of remembrance to those who suffered under Communism. A documentary about my life will be featured at the June 11th grand opening of the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington D.C.I will be a featured artist at the May 30th gala concert for the Victims of Communism Memorial in Albania.
I became a creative entrepreneur out of necessity, to survive in a place with no opportunities. I continue to be one, because I live in a place that has only opportunities. Music gives voice to the voiceless and freedom to the oppressed. My mission is to advocate for freedom in everything I do in any way I can.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Being an artist has provided me a platform to freely share who I am, what I feel and what I think. This freedom is something I do not take for granted. In my childhood in Albania, every aspect of my existence was regulated and monitored. I could not select the instrument I studied, the pieces I played or the clothes I wore. We had to report who came to our home, we couldn’t speak about religion or certain family members. We could not even speak freely in our own home. Today, piano has given me the voice I was denied in my youth. And I can do anything I want with it. To be truly myself is the most rewarding aspect of my life as an artist.
Have you ever had to pivot?
A creative entrepreneur is always pivoting–or better yet–evolving. Depending on my circumstances in life or the world, different opportunities become available as we grow professionally. I think the first major evolution was becoming an entrepreneur after I completed my doctorate. During my doctoral studies, my piano professor would comment on how I was different from his other students because I didn’t just practice piano, I was always hustling for opportunities outside of the university. I always saw the entrepreneurial side of myself as a performing artist. This is how I became a Mason & Hamlin Artist. Through that work, my professors and friends would see my face on billboards, magazines, and even airports and send me selfies with my picture with pride. That motivated me to better myself.
Upon graduating, I was a mother of two young children with a third on the way. I no longer had the same freedom to perform all over the world at the rate I was as a concert pianist. To adapt to family life, I needed to find something that would allow me to be there in the way I wanted to for my children but also fulfill me creatively. This is how DIMA came to be. Every day I would see busy parents like myself hurriedly trying to get their kids to their after school activities. They lost valuable time and had limited options for their children’s musical training. With my children and family in mind, I made the decision to start offering these lessons and group classes at my children’s school and later expanded to several other Dallas schools.
I built a curriculum and organized a team of the most elite musicians in Dallas. Only four years later we have grown to 10 schools with year round after school programming, summer camps, group classes, and individual lessons, on campus, in home, and at our studios in the Design District on several different instruments. When COVID hit, I worried, as did many in the education sector, that we might stall. But the isolation had the opposite effect, we grew. The pandemic exposed the need for creative disciplines in children and its extraordinary therapeutic and social benefits. The need for freedom.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://elidadakoli.com/
- Instagram: @elidadakoli
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elida.dakoli
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-elida-dakoli-08518121/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_PvaWjCQ3sMr261wjLfQA
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UffQ3doTlIc&t=5s