After a series of concerts in Bulgaria and in several countries of Europe, at the beginning of 2018 the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices will be releasing a new album.

Founded 65 years ago, the choir of world renown has never stopped performing for their audiences. The idea to set up such a choir belongs to Georgi Boyadzhiev, head of the folk music department at the Bulgarian National Radio. The choir’s first record came out in 1975, with conductor Dora Hristova and producer Marcel Cellier. The album - The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices – marked the beginning of a highly successful series with the same title. And it is the name the female folk choir took in 1997.

As Boyana Bounkova, executive producer of the new album puts it, we shall hear the choir in an entirely new light. Boyana studied law at the St. Kliment Ohrdiski University, Sofia and then went on to study in London and in USA. She chose to specialize in copyright and has been living in California for almost ten years, where she works as a lawyer. Parallel with her work, she set up and is in charge of the Bulgarian office of an independent production company. Boyana Bounkova was born in Kurdzhali, where she studied the violin and played with a children’s string orchestra. She says the songs by the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices have always fascinated her.

“We have all heard of the choir,” she says. “But many friends of mine – from Bulgaria and from other countries – kept asking me where they can find new recordings, or where they can hear them in concert. That was how, little by little, the idea for this album came about, though work on it in earnest only began in 2016.”

Soloist in the new production is Lisa Gerrard – an Australian singer, film composer who rose to fame with the Dead Can Dance; in 2000, together with Hans Zimmer, she won a Golden Globe for the music to the film Gladiator. Another famous name involved in the choir’s new album is world beatbox champion, SkilleR from Bulgaria, alongside German percussionist David Kuckhermann, who has been working with Lisa Gerrard for many years.

“I invited Petar Dundakov to write music for the choir,” Boyana goes on to say. “He is a young composer, but with experience in classical choir and orchestra music, and in the past – in pop music. To my mind he was the person suited best to initiate a change in direction, so as bring the way the choir sounds more palatable to the younger generation. In USA there are music lovers who are fascinated by the music of the Mystery… and remember every concert they have had there. I have met people who are very well acquainted with their work. Some time ago I went to a courier service office to send something back to Bulgaria. The guy working there was about 20 and when I told him I was from Bulgaria, he said he loved the songs of the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices. It was such a treat to hear him say that. Of course, there is a big potential for extending their audience in USA, but also in countries in Europe. Actually, that is what we are after, that is what we are trying to achieve with this new project. The album also features some authors outside Bulgaria. For example Lisa Gerrard is soloist, but she is also co-author of several of the songs. We also invited Irish composer Jules Maxwell. Some of the pieces are the work of different composers, others are based on folklore, dance melodies are also used, though lyrics have been added. The choir sings to the accompaniment of different instrument and that too is something new, changing the way they sound altogether, bringing them closer to world music. We had two big concerts with Lisa Gerrard in Sofia, in Bulgaria hall, and in Plovdiv, at which we presented the new repertoire. They were followed by performances in two towns in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Italy. Next year, after the album has been released, we shall launch a big European tour.”

The instruments in the album are played by Petar Milanov (guitar), Hristina Beleva (rebeck), Kostadin Genchev (kaval) and Dimitar Karamfilov (double bass). The project’s music producer is Petar Dundakov. The first single, called Pora Sotunda will be released with a music video at the beginning of December. If you were to ask what Pora Sotunda means, you probably wouldn’t get an answer, because the title is in a language Lisa Gerrard invented. But the sound is very much like tribal music. What the other songs from the album are like is something we shall find out when it comes out, in March 2018.

English version: Milena Daynova

Photos: Nely Kurteva