"Silence! On air!” – reads the sign that lights up above the massive door of Studio No.1 of the BNR – music’s inner sanctum at the national radio, as Momchil Georgiev calls it in the introduction to his book. “It is in Studio No. 1 that the mystery that is music is created – the sound that flows freely into tape and computer,” the author writes. This is not the first book dedicated to the BNR and its role in the development of Bulgarian music culture. But it is the only one that goes into such detail to analyze the array of different activities that go into creating, recording, storing and popularizing music of different genres.

Momchil Georgiev worked at the BNR for 15 years, holding different positions, including director of Music Production and Music Groups. But his bond with the national radio is also personal and runs in the family. His grandfather Voyn Iliev sang and composed religious music – he made recordings for the BNR’s audio archives fund in the 1960s. Prof. Dimitar Georgiev, a close relative and Momchil’s flute teacher, was soloist of the BNR Symphony Orchestra for many years; he has performed at hundreds of concerts and has had numerous studio recordings of symphony and chamber music. Momchil himself has left a mark in the BNR’s “audio memory” as a performer, host and guest of numerous shows. “Silence! On air!” is actually an adapted version of the thesis he defended in 2013 at the Pancho Vladigerov National Music Academy.

“The book is an attempt to analyze the music processes taking place at the Bulgarian National Radio, in terms of technology and the philosophy of creating music, its popularization, preservation and use. Radio has a congenital bond with music, it is, by definition, an institution of education and culture. It should not be forgotten that the first programme broadcast by Radio Sofia, as it was then called, was a live concert from the Suedinenie (Unity) hall in Varna in 1934. The oldest recording preserved at the Golden Fund audio archives is a horo tune, recorded by Alois Mazak, a Czech composer and conductor who lived and worked in Bulgaria for decades. Radio is inconceivable without music. What I aimed to do is analyze the genesis of this huge body of work in culture, the radio’s function of music producer, the international exchange, the contacts with copyright associations. These are all things “invisible’ to the naked eye, but they are very important and have never before been described or analyzed. All of Bulgaria’s leading composers, performers and conductors have guest performed at concerts by the radio orchestras and have made studio recordings at the BNR. Many famous names have actually worked for the national radio, making their contribution in different spheres. The music library has preserved many truly unique recordings – by Dmitri Shostakovich, Kirill Kondrashin, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Hermann Abendroth and many more. The BNR has been organizing its own music competitions and festivals since the 1950s, for example, the folklore festival “Dobroudja singing and dancing”, “Parade of children’s songs”. The individual channels also organize competitions of their own, as do the regional stations in Varna, Blagoevgrad, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora. There are a great many festivals the national radio has itself taken part in – Concertino in Prague, European Broadcasting Union competitions etc. Not to mention the concert cycles by the radio orchestras and choirs, the broadcasting, live of major music events…”

We end with one more excerpt from “Silence! On air!”  
“This book is a humble emissary of the truth that the Bulgarian National Radio is so much more than media and journalism.”

English version: Milena Daynova