The Bulgarian National Radio Big Band has delighted music fans with fragments from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess opera in the Gil Evans adaptation. The premiere was held on 12 December 2013 during the New Year Music Festival at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Later, the fragments were presented in concert again, at BNR’s Studio One. The Binar program of the National Radio has video-recorded the event that you can watch here:

The off-the-wall arrangements have been created by internationally acclaimed musician Gil Evans for prominent jazz trumpet player Miles Davis. In 1958 the music score went mysteriously missing. Thirty years on, in the 1990s, at the initiative of celebrity musician Quincy Jones and thanks to preserved audio recordings, the score was reproduced. The work was presented anew with soloist Miles Davis. The unique music scores have been provided to the Bulgarian National Radio by the Gil Evans family.

„I am absolutely positive that this is a remarkable project. Gil Evans is a big name and even after his death his music continues to inspire jazz musicians. Therefore it is important to revisit his contribution into art, and commemorate him for his 101^st birth anniversary. Fortunately, Bulgaria boasts three brilliant trumpet musicians – Rosen Zahariev, Ventzislav Blagoev and Mihail Yosifov, so I decided to work with them on Porgy and Bess”, says Anthony Dontchev, Chief Conductor of the Bulgarian National Radio Big Band.

English version: Daniela Konstantinova