Dimitar Lukarski, the young voice of the Shoplouk region and the Macedonian songs of Ventsislav Penev

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Dimitar Lukarski was born in Sofia, but grew up in the small town of Radomir, 44 km to the west of Sofia. It was originally built in the Middle Ages over the remains of a settlement from Antiquity. It is known for its freedom-minded population, for the Soldiers’ Uprising that proclaimed Radomir a republic (1918), and with natural and cultural sites. The fans of folklore are impressed with the well-preserved signing tradition here that has a characteristic vibrato. It is called “trembling”.

“Ï have borrowed from famous folk singers who have practiced the celebrated trembling – Pavlina Gorcheva, Slavka Sekoutova, Radka Alexova, Stancho Stoilov and other golden Bulgarian voices. And I have learned a lot from my grandmother who was a talented amateur folk singer. She taught me to sing, and she observed an ancient tradition from the region of Radomir – she gave me to drink from a bell for the sake of a silvery voice. Singer Slavka Sekoutova once told me she had drunk water from a bell too.”

Dimitar explains that in the Large Shoplouk, a major folklore region in Western Bulgaria, there is big differences between songs. In the villages closer to the capital Sofia they display sharp, clipped melodies with narrow intervals. In the Radomir region songs are gentler, either one or two-voiced. There are specific one-voiced wedding songs with the characteristic trembling. These are particularly difficult to perform given the ornamented melody.

“Humorous and chain dance songs are also sung, not slow ones exclusively. There should be songs for the chain dance, because people love to dance and have fun,” Dimitar Lukarski explains. I my repertoire I have mostly slow, sorrowful songs contrary to the view that the Shoplouk songs are predominantly humorous. To name some of them – Two Dragons Fighting on the Mountain and God Started Building a Monastery. These are sad songs. However, the Sholpuk is more popular with the comical songs. Joking is in the genes of the locals. Irony and self-irony are common here. Cracking a joke or two means the spirit becomes stronger. I love both the witty and sad songs, but I like to sing the slow and sorrowful ones more often. They represent the cream of Bulgaria’s folk music. People use to say: sing to me a slow song to see whether you are a good singer. This is so because the slow song reveals the mastery and the singing technique, and it is also dense with emotion.”

Dimitar Lukarski has studied music in Radimir and Pernik, Western Bulgaria.

There is no Shopp or Graovo song that Dimitar does not know to sing. He is singing all the time, day and night, and has a rare talent, argues his teacher Kiril Metodiev. He has known folk singer Pavlina Gorcheva since childhood, and she became his teacher. When I went to her, she told me she could teach me little, because I was skilled enough in the regional style, Dimitar recalls. She was only telling me where the emotion should be stronger, since emotion is vital for the performance. She helped me in polishing the details of the song and advised me how to perform the ornaments. I am proud to have learned the trembling with a lot of listening and hard work. Singer Slavka Sekoutova has given me some of her songs, he says. Dimitar Lukarski has also borrowed creatively from Kremena Stancheva, especially for the two-voiced songs in which one of the voices keeps the melody and the other voice is dragging down.

Today Dimitar Lukarski is a graduate in music pedagogy from the Neophyte of Rila University in Blagoevdgrad. For him, the experience on stage is magnificent. He has already presented Bulgarian folk songs abroad. His first international tour was in 2008, to Italy, France and Belgium. In 2009 he was on a tour of Germany. The audience in those countries gave the Bulgarian performer storms of applause and enjoyed the colorful traditional costumes of the presenters. They loved the Bulgarian folklore and especially the Shopp one that overflows with vigor, Dimitar recalls. Following his first radio recordings he has been collecting folk songs from elderly people for a new session with the BNR Folk Music Band. Rosen Genkov, an expert in the Shopp style has arranged the first songs of Dimitar Lukarski. One of them was recorded from granny Radka, an old woman from the village of Zhablyano. The song features the old Shopp traditional costume including the koshulya, or shirt, the saya, a female jacket lined with gold-lace on the sleeves, the plastron, the apron and the waistband. In times of old, Dimitar Lukarski says, the saya with gold-lace was an expensive garment. To buy one saya, people had to sell a plot of land. The gold-lace on the sleeves was very sophisticated, created with amazing imagination. The more tinsel on the sleeves, the richer the family.

We now move on to the south, and the southwestern Macedonian folklore region. Most of the lands in this region historically belonged to Bulgaria and the local folk songs can be heard today in three countries – Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia.

Ventsislav Penev was born in 1979 in Sofia. He was trained by the celebrated folk singer Kostadin Gugov, a descendant of refugees from Aegean Macedonia. In his memory Ventsislav Gugov wrote and recorded his song Memory of Gugov. He had his debut at the Bulgarian National Radio in 2004. His first solo album Magical Songs from Macedonia including ten songs by composer Sasho Velkov was released four year later. Currently Penev is completing his last year at the Neophyte of Rila University in Blagoevgrad, Southwestern Bulgaria. His major is music pedagogy.

Translated by Daniela Konstantinova

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Dimitar Lukarski, the young voice of the Shoplouk region and the Macedonian songs of Ventsislav Penev

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