“I love saxophone music because of its rich tone quality, the way it sounds, its vibrations and the potential it opens up as an instrument,” says Vladimir. It has always been his dream to set up a saxophone quartet. And this dream came true when he had lived in Germany for some years. The other three members of Forkolor are German instrumentalists. The only lady Katharina Thomsen plays the baritone saxophone. As her colleagues say, she is a veritable “groove machine” and is adept at keeping the rhythm and the lower notes. Florian Trübsbach and André Cimiotti play the alto saxophone. The band leader plays the tenor. At the end of October and the beginning of November the quartet had a number of concerts. That was when Germany and the whole of Europe marked 200 years since the birth of Antoine Joseph Adolphe Sax, the man who invented the saxophone. November 6, his birthday is celebrated as the birthday of the instrument itself.

“The date seemed to remind people what the saxophone is all about, but also of formations like ours. Before I went to Germany, I myself had only heard of saxophone quartets. I set up Forkolor after I was invited to several concerts in Bulgaria. I am glad to say that I managed to bring together wonderful instrumentalists and composers. The CD we are presenting features our own compositions. We presented it at a famous jazz club in Berlin. At that same time Nigel Hitchock was in town – an incredible saxophone player, who has been a member of the legendary quartet Itchy Fingers. Quite spontaneously, he joined in during the second part of our programme; that was a great experience – five saxophones on stage sound awesome. We have had some excellent reviews. All this has motivated us to work even harder. We are now planning another album in which I would like to include other colleagues, just as I did in this one.”

There are two Bulgarian musicians who are guest-soloists in the Forkolor album – Stoyan Yankulov, percussion and Nedyalko Nedyalkov – shepherd’s flute. In Germany Vladimir Karparov has been working with several other formations and there is good news there too:

“Together with Vladimir Karparov quartet which is a jazz quartet, we made recordings for a new album. I hope to be able to present it in spring. It also features guest musicians from Bulgaria – Nedyalko Nedyalkov again as well as accordion player Petar Ralchev. I also perform with a jazz trio, together with Uwe Kropinski and Suzanne Paul. We recently took part in the Jazz Festival in Göttingen. I am also continuing my work with the formation For Free Hands. At the Berliner Ensemble theatre I perform in a new play directed by foremost theatre director Katharina Thalbach; I even have a small role on stage. I tried to find information about the history of the theatre and found out that many years ago, prominent Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov wrote music for that same theatre house. That is something that makes me feel really proud.”

English Milena Daynova

The audio file features the following tracks from the album:

- Gipsy Smile;

- Ex 13.;

- Razgele