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Bulgaria’s famed all-female folk choir back with a modern twist
VARNA, Bulgaria, Aug 10, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Thirty years ago an all-female
folk choir set up in Bulgaria became the darling of Western audiences with
its tradition-steeped a cappella singing, before the fall of communism
threatened its survival.
With fans like George Harrison, David Bowie and Kate Bush, The Mystery Of
The Bulgarian Voices ensemble conquered the international charts during the
Cold War at a time when world music was beginning to gain popularity.
Now the Grammy-winning choir from Sofia is back, with their embroidered
blouses and floral hair styles plus a contemporary twist, having teamed up
with Australian-born Lisa Gerrard of the music group, Dead Can Dance.
The choir’s new album — its first studio production in two decades — in
collaboration with Gerrard was released in May in Bulgaria and deemed by
Rolling Stone magazine’s online edition as among the “10 New Albums to Stream
Now”.
Gerrard said her task on the album, entitled “BooCheeMish” — after a local
shrub that blossoms between rocks — was “to bring them (the choir) into the
moment without corrupting their tradition”.
A longtime fan, Gerrard recalled her first encounter with the choir’s music
38 years ago, telling AFP: “There was something unique and full of light that
these women were doing, which is what I wanted from the work.”
– Singing that ‘can’t be taught’ –
The choir’s signature vocal style is made up of powerful layered polyphonic
harmonies, created by different combinations of voices, a sound once
described as something between a call to prayer and The Beach Boys.
“This genuine open singing that comes from the throat, the larynx, is not
something that you can teach, you must be born with this,” longstanding choir
master Dora Hristova said.
Many of the two dozen women, aged 20 to 70, in the choir have inherited
their singing skills from their parents.
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“My mother Nadezhda Hvojneva was a soloist for the choir for 40 years, and
we used to perform side by side,” singer Elichka Krastanova, 50, told AFP.
Originally their songs would have been sung in rural parts of Bulgaria
during weddings or on religious holidays and as people worked in the fields.
In the 1950s, encouraged by the communist regime which propagated working-
class and peasant culture, composers did more popular arrangements of these
traditional songs and the best performers were drafted into state choirs.
And in 1952, the all-women choir was founded as The State Radio and
Television Female Vocal Choir.
It remained largely unknown abroad, despite a Swiss ethnomusicologist,
Marcel Cellier, in 1975 releasing an album featuring them and other Bulgarian
folk music compositions entitled “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” (The Mystery
of the Bulgarian Voices). It was not until 1986 that the choir rose to
international fame, when the album was edited and re-issued by the British
cult record label 4AD, which has released albums by bands such as the Cocteau
Twins and Bauhaus.
– Turbulent transition –
Their second album, released in 1987, went on to win a Grammy Award in
1990, and the Bulgarian women, in their kaleidoscopic attire, started touring
the world to sell-out crowds, releasing two more albums in 1989 and 1998.
Captivated by the purity and originality of their sound, fans included
David Bowie and his wife Iman, who had one of the choir’s songs “Kalimankou
Denkou” played during their 1992 wedding.
But the end of communism brought turbulent times for the choir, leading to
their sacking by the state broadcaster in 1997. The singers were forced to
take other jobs, most as music teachers, to make ends meet.
“We survived only thanks to the many invitations for concerts that came
from abroad and the necessity to keep up our level and not disappoint the
audience,” choir master Hristova said.
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But there was no money for new songs and arrangements, let alone
recordings.
Hristova also struggled to recruit younger singers, who could still sing
the traditional harmonies.
– Embracing the future –
Finally, the independent Schubert Music Publishing company provided the
means to record their new album, described by producer Boyana Bounkova as “a
bolder and quite experimental mix of styles”.
“Every singer must, from time to time, leave their comfort zone and indulge
in such adventures, to try all kinds of things with their voice because it is
a limitless capacity,” said Gerrard’s co-soloist Gergana Dimitrova, 43, whose
parents are also folk singers.
Apart from the collaboration with Gerrard, composer Petar Dundakov has
added other contemporary elements — an acoustic accompaniment of various
stringed instruments and beatboxer Alexander Deyanov, known as SkilleR, who
performs his form of vocal percussion.
“I believe that folklore is not a mix of costumes, dances and melodies that
must be kept in the ethnographic museum, but something that must encounter
modernity, and this encounter is its only way of developing,” Dundakov said.
“Superb! Far beyond my expectations,” spectator Peshka Dobreva, 70, told
AFP, after a performance in the Black Sea city of Varna in mid-June, which
ended with standing ovations and five encores.
Another audience member, Desislava Hristova, 35, said she loved the
“cocktail of styles”.
“This was our mission during all these years — to keep the tradition alive
so that now we are able to present it to a younger audience that knows very
little about it,” Hristova said.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1020 hrs