It is 90 years since the birth of Magdalena Morarova - the singer who shall be remembered for the emblematic song Petruno, pile shareno (Pretty lass Petruna), a song known and loved by all Bulgarians.

Magdalena Morarova has recorded a great many original and rare songs for the Bulgarian National Radio audio library. She was born in the foothills of Mount Pirin, in the small town of Bansko, now a famous ski resort. She inherited her talent and knowledge of folk music of the Pirin region from her father - he played different instruments really well like the kaval and the tamburica and had a wide-ranging repertoire of songs. He even composed songs in the Bansko folklore tradition. Magdalena sang from a very early age but started her career as a singer relatively late - around the age of 30. Folklorist Ivan Kachoulev heard her sing at the festival in Rousse and astonished by her talent, recommended her to his colleagues from the Bulgarian National Radio right away. Her voice first came on the air in 1957. One of the songs she sang at the audition was Okol Pleven (Around Pleven) about the siege of Pleven, a song that came to be really popular thanks to her own singing talent and emotional performance.

But Pretty lass Petruna and Around Pleven are not the only songs Magdalena Morarova has made popular, there are many more, among them Are your eyes grape berries, Cold water flowing, Djore dos…

Magdalena Morarova started her career as a performer in the 1960s together with famous names like Boris Mashalov and Ivan Panovski. She spent 20 years traveling far and wide with popular folklore groups, singing in towns and villages, in Bulgaria and abroad. She made many recordings at the BNR, released several LPs, made films for Bulgarian National TV. It should be noted that her songs were arranged by composers applying the methods of classical harmony adapted to folklore melodies. In fact that is a whole separate school in Bulgaria's music history - the rendition of folk songs for the stage. Unfortunately there are no recordings of unarranged songs sung by Morarova.

Magdalena Morarova passed away in 2009 but she has left us her music, still played on the air, to remind us of her magnificent voice and the wonderful songs from the town where she was born - Bansko.

The audio features the following songs performed by Magdalena Morarova:

- Are your eyes grape berries;

- Pretty lass Petruna;

- Around Pleven;

- Djore dos;

- Cold water flowing.

English version Milena Daynova