After a number of successful concerts together with the Big Band of the BNR, conductor Antoni Donchev presented a chamber project entitled Seven Steps to the Mystery. His partners in the project are Eva Quartet, percussionist Stoyan Yankulov, trumpet player Rosen Zahariev, and vocalist Pavel Terziyski. A concert has already taken place in Studio 1 of the radio.
Renowned Russian musician Arkady Shilkloper also joined the project and arrived in Sofia for a few concerts. In January he performed in a concert for alpine horn while in Seven Steps to Mystery he plays the French horn.
Antoni Donchev is a renowned jazz musician and composer. Seven Steps to Mystery is his first big project based on Bulgarian folklore. Here is what Mr. Donchev told Radio Bulgaria.
The basis of the project is a whole universe. This is the Bulgarian folklore. I have always felt great respect towards the traditions of Bulgarian music and I have been very careful doing this project. We use the performances of the ladies from Eva Quartet and make musical improvisations, Antony Donchev says.
Alexandroff Ragtime Band has recently marked its 25th anniversary with a concert in the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Some of the musicians who established the band in 1986 also took part in the project.
The band frontman is Rumen Alexandrov, who plays the guitar and bandjo. 25 years ago he established a trio performing ragtime, blues, and dixieland. The first concert of the band was in 1987 in a jazz festival in Plovdiv. In the period 1987-1990 the band also hosted the Saturday Jazz Club. The musicians were also organisers of the first open air jazz festival in Bulgaria – Jazz in the Garden.
English: Alexander Markov
