The first edition of the Wild Rose BG Music Festival will be held on March 3 and 4 in London. The festival aims at gathering Bulgarians living in Britain's capital as well as all fans of Bulgarian music. The music festival will also mark Bulgaria's national holiday March 3 (National Liberation Day). Four renowned Bulgarian pop musicians Maria Ilieva, Lubo Kirov, Mihaela Fileva and Desi Dobreva are the main performers at the music event.

Iva Angelicheva is founder and artistic director of Wild Rose BG Music Festival. She has been living in London in the past few years and has been studying music business and arts management. She has been also learning how to become an event manager. Here is how the young Bulgarian presented the forthcoming music event.

“I have been living in London for several years and I attended concerts of Bulgarian musicians. My idea was to organize a festival with celebrated Bulgarian musicians and create an overall experience for the audience. We tried to make sure that our audience will sink into Bulgarian atmosphere from the moment they enter the lobby of the concert hall. We are to make a traditional Bulgarian reception and offer our guests Bulgarian-style food and Bulgarian wine. The musicians from the warm-up bands are also very skillful. BULGARA is one of the opening bands. It is among the most popular Bulgarian bands in London and many people from the Bulgarian community there love that band. Bulgarian violinist Nachko Bogdanov will also take part at the concert with his music repertoire consisting of pieces with folklore motifs in folk dance style. Desi Dobreva and Mihaela Fileva will be on stage on Friday. A DJ will take care of the guests at the after- party in the same music hall. On Saturday the audience will enjoy the performance of Lubo Kirov and Maria Ilieva who make an incredible music duo. Of course they will present their own music programmes, but will also sing in a duo. There will be a DJ after-party after their concert, too. The music hall is named The Grand and is situated in Clapham residential district in South London. The Bulgarian audience knows well that music hall, because many Bulgarian musicians have held their concerts there. The interest towards the music festival is huge. Many people will arrive from other English cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Norwich, etc. Those people will have to travel for hours to get to the music hall in London. Some Bulgarians will even arrive from the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and other countries especially for that music event. Apparently, many people decided to travel during the National Holiday weekend and intend to combine their trips with nice Bulgarian concerts. The concerts will start at 7.30 pm.”

Iva Angelicheva is from the city of Veliko Tarnovo (Central North Bulgaria). She told Radio Bulgaria that she became a member of the Rumina Children Pop Studio when she was only five years old and that she acquired her first organizational skills there from her teacher Rumiana Nacheva. I am very grateful to Mrs. Nacheva who is an author, producer and organizer of the international pop music contest for young singers Silver Yantra in Veliko Tarnovo, Iva further says. When Iva was still a young musician she won several music awards in Malta, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Macedonia and Moldova. She earned the national scholarship for skillful children of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science four times. Iva voiced hopes that the first edition of Wild Rose BG Music Festival will be successful and that it would attract the attention of the audience with its popular Bulgarian musicians, as well as with the presentation of high-quality Bulgarian food and wine. Iva Angelicheva is planning to develop the music festival in the future and include music from all genres. The first edition, however, will consist of pop, dance and folklore.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

The audio file features the following performances:

1  Neka Vali (Let it rain), to the rendition of Maria Ilieva

2  Po Parvi Petli, performed by Lubo Kirov

3  Blue, to the rendition of Desi Dobreva

4  High and low tides, to the rendition of Mihaela Fileva

5  I am Here, performed by Mihaela Fileva