Every month Radio Bulgaria invites you to vote in our music chart, Musicbox Bulgaria. After drawing of lots CDs are sent to three of you who selected the award-winning song in the respective music genre. To vote, you can send us your choice of song or tune at English@bnr.bg. Results are announced on the 16th of each month. This month results will be announced on April 18 due to the Easter weekend.

Lazarovden (Lazarus Saturday), Tsvetnitsa (Palm Sunday) and Easter are three of the most important spring feasts in Bulgaria. Bulgarians mark all three of them with special customs. On Lazarovden young girls called Lazarki dance and sing for good health and good luck. Tsvetnitsa (Palm Sunday) is the feast of flowers and spring. On that day Christians go to church and take sanctified willow twigs home to clean their souls and purify their homes.

On Easter people paint red eggs and all family members gather together around a large festive table to mark the resurrection of our Savior and wish one another prosperity and well-being.

The feasts are always accompanied with a lot of music. There are songs about every moment of our lives, including those three feasts.

Velikden Ide (Easter is Near) is a song from the music repertoire of Dragostin Folk National. The arrangement of that piece was made by Stefan Dragostinov himself. Composer Stefan Dragostinov is one of the innovators in choral music. Dragostin Folk National has released 11 CDs with over 700 minutes of music of the large-scale project Anthology of the Bulgarian Folklore, Sonic Icons of Bulgaria, Rofinka, Sarakina, Galunka, Danube Music, Love Story, Christmas Star, Prituri se Planinata, Miloyka, Sun's Wedding, Grozdanka and Shinka music albums. That music formation has held many world tours and won music awards at various music forums.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

Congratulations!

The pop song Yavorov Spring has topped the chart for the past month. CDs with production of the Bulgarian National Radio will go to Jan Umlauff from Germany, Radhakrishna Pillai N. from India and to Alexander Ustinovich from Russia.