“From the source” – recordings from the National Folk Festivals in Koprivshtitza

published on 2/12/10 3:41 PM

Photo: Архив

“From the source”

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For decades now the ancient Bulgarian town of Koprivshtitza in Central Bulgaria has hosted the National Festival of Bulgarian Folklore. This big event started in 1965, and since then every five years the lawns of the Voyvodenetz area turn into a big folklore stage, where talented amateur musicians, storytellers, singers and dancers show their art. Legendary names in Bulgarian folklore used to perform there at the beginning and later on younger talents started to participate in it. Thus the Festival turned into a bridge between generations, playing a key role in the preserving of the Bulgarian cultural inheritance.
We are glad that through the years the folk gathering in Koprivshtitza has become popular abroad too and has been visited by foreigners. Here are some of their impressions:
“I am not talking as a man of folklore, but as a man that is in love with it. What I found delightful here were these feelings that came straight from the people’s hearts. That was an amazing harmony – on the stages and around them. You are certainly moving in the right direction!” – Mr. Andre Guise, President of the International Folklore Festival in Nice, France, says.
“The Koprivshtitza festival is the biggest national festival that I have attended. There are six separate stages – this is tremendous, I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else. I know the Bulgarian folklore as a dynamic art that lives not only in the festival but also in people’s everyday life. Your folklore is part of both ancient and contemporary Bulgarian culture” – Mr William Fabri, director of the Institute for Culture in Bratislava says.
“Bulgarian folklore is an original one and it is hard to describe in words. We saw dances with so much life in them. The music is interesting and quite different from ours. Its rhythmic variety is especially impressive – rhythms that are difficult to perform, but with a strong and immediate impact!” – Wilfrid Muhler from Germany says.
This coming August the town of Koprivshtitza will be expecting its guests and the participants in the jubilee Tenth Festival – a fest of the authentic Bulgarian folklore. In connection with this Radio Bulgaria will broadcast a series of programs with part of the priceless recording that the Bulgarian National Radio had made in Koprivshtitza.
4000 participants took part in the first folk gathering from August 12th to 15th 1965. Experts from 14 countries, along with 50 000 Bulgarian guests attended the event. Singers, music players, actors and storytellers showed their talent on the stages in the area of Voyvodenetz. Many of them received prizes and medals in that tremendous art contest. We offer you now some of their best performances:

You have heard the traditional instrumental band from the town of Sandanski, South-Western Bulgaria. Next comes a Thracian song, performed by Methodi Dinkov from the Sinitevo village in the district of Pazardjik, Southern Bulgaria.
Hristo Baev’s bagpipe brings sounds from the Strandja Mountain:

Talented folk singer from Varna Zorka Zheliazkova’s performance was recorded at the first festival in Koprivshtitza. Listen to her performance of a slow, chain dance song, accompanied by Kosta Kolev’s orchestra. Mr Kolev was one of the first conductors of the folk orchestra of the Bulgarian National radio.

We will conclude with performances of fiddler Anani Yanachkin from the village of Babino near the town of Kyustendil /South-Western Bulgaria/. He is famous with his unique double voice playing style that has unfortunately been abandoned by folk performers and has been forgotten now. So far Radio Bulgaria has offered you recordings from the first National Festival of Bulgarian Folklore in Koprivshtitza.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev

По публикацията работи: Valya Bojilova

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“From the source” – recordings from the National Folk Festivals in Koprivshtitza

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