Dear friend of choral song,
On 20.10.1975 the Student Chamber Choir at the Higher Institute of Music and Pedagogy - Plovdiv, presented for the participants in Sofia International Symposium a 90-minute concert with selection of Bulgarian songs. This date was marked as the inception of a choir, whose artistic perfection and worldwide acclaimed performances contributed to the grand popularity of Bulgarian choral art. (Since 1980 the choir has been known as the Female Chamber Choir at AMTII - Plovdiv).
It’s been only one month since the first rehearsal and the students were no under any obligation to participate. The invitation for this concert was a spontaneous expression of interest in the newly created choir. By the end of it, we received an invitation from the Union of Bulgarian Composers to participate in the annual festival “New Bulgarian Music “where our program was received really enthusiastically.
Prof. Vasil Arnaudov greeted us rather warmly. Furthermore, invitation to participate at “Golden Diana” Festival in Yambol fallowed. Implicitly, the good performance of the choir was the best outcome of the exceptional discipline of the choristers and their sincere interest in the choral art. The following year we were invited to be part of Celebrations of choral art in Pazardzhik. Here we premiered ”Medodrama” by Ivan Spasov under the conducting of Konstantin Iliev.
Soon after that Radio Sofia recorded our interpretation of "Mehmetyo" and "Two drums beat" by Ivan Spasov. This recording was submitted to the BBC - London for participation in the annual "Let the Nations Sing" competition and won first place in the ranking. These rapid successes were the fruit of dedication and extensive hard work. In the meantime, the choir was growing.
Half a year after the first concert in Sofia I invited Alexandra Toromanova to join me as choirmaster and keyboard accompanist. During the long years of working together, it turned out that our common consent and overlapping aesthetic criteria resulted in faster and more thorough repertoire preparation. The pursuit of perfection was also the reason for Diana Raichinova accepting the role of chorus master singer.
I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to thank Tateos Sanjakyan, for his accompaniment of the work “With song and youth “by Ivan Dimov presented at New Bulgarian Music. This was the time of expanding our repertoire horizons and numerous appearances in the most prestigious Bulgarian music forums.
The choir's first overseas tour was in Chisinau - Moldova followed by glorious performances home and abroad. In the period 1976-1983, the choir was First prize winner and Gold Medal recipient in 8 international choir competitions. This ultimately prompted authoritative invitations as :
"Warsaw Autumn", "Spring Music Festival" - Budapest, Tel Aviv Festival, Flanders Festival "Tangerine" - Belgium, "Voices of Europe" - Italy, Sofia Music Weeks, First World Choir Festival - Atlanta - USA, Third World Choir Symposium - Vancouver - Canada, First European Choir Festival - Ljubljana - Slovenia, Choir Festival in Athens - Greece, Brno International Festival - Czech Republic, Ohrid Summer Festival, evening concert broadcast live on West German radio, several festivals in France. Let's mention the highly demanding audiences part of which was names such Panderetski , T. Brunel , Dr. Brenex and many more .
We mastered the art of singing in numerous languages - Bulgarian, Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Greek, English, Hungarian, Czech and Hebrew. We performed about 100 Bulgarian songs, music from Baroque oratorio to contemporary works in countless venues all over the world, from concert hall to cathedrals and open stages.
The number of works performed by the choir at home and abroad is truly impressive. This intensive activity was an extremely valuable in forming the music teachers at the Academy. Judge for yourself how extensive the choir's activities were by reading its repertoire.
Until 2002, the choir performed under the direction of its founder and conductor, Krikor Chetinyan. Later on, the leadership was taken by Alexandra Toromanova.
What was the repertoire? Un essential question for both performers and listeners. The answer might be found woven into lighter and more difficult scores, ethnic features with tonal and extended tonal thinking, with dissonant and consonant verticals, with modal and harmonic characteristics performed in a literary language.
When asked by a Radio Sofia journalist which aesthetic I subscribe to, my replay was: “Only to the composer’s one”.
These lines are from the hand of Krikor Chetinyan - by God's will a choir conductor until the end of his earthly journey.
