Bulgaria lacks modern classical music, says violinist Smilyana Lozanova
“Our idea is contemporary classical music – something we think is missing in Bulgaria. What is missing is the music of composers who are currently creating and experiencing it. There is also no publication for such music. Our idea is to develop exactly that and somehow try to share classical music with a modern reading among the public, which for one reason or another would not enter the concert hall, but it is not known whether there is an interest in it”. This is what the violinist Smiliana Lozanova said during the international jazz festival in Borovets.
She will take the stage as part of the MYX’D ensemble. Yulian Stoyanov (violin), Dimitar Moskovski (clarinet), Kristian Chernev (cello) and Miroslav Georgiev (piano) also play in it.
“We all share the idea that classical music – created 200, 100 years ago or today, is multifaceted and can at one moment impress a person in a way that he did not expect,” comments Lozanova.
At the concert in Borovets, MYX’D presents works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edvard Grieg, Giacomo Puccini, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and others. The ensemble’s performances are part of the emphasis that the forum will place on classical jazz music, said festival director Dr. Tatiana Ilieva.
“We feel an increasingly important responsibility that we bear as ambassadors of music in general around the world. Because I think we all know very well what a huge challenge the huge gap that widens, between our art, let’s call it, and the general public, which knows less and less what classical music is, is becoming more and more. The number of people who have never heard that there is a “Bulgaria” hall, that there is a Symphony Orchestra, etc., is growing even more. And in this sense, we have a huge responsibility to not only be able to preserve this music, but also to present it in a way that is adequate to the context of the modern generation”, commented Dimitar Moskovski.
On the second festival night in Borovets, the Serbian “Kal Band” will perform. The group plays a combination of the music of the Western Balkans and swing, jazz, blues and pop. “Whatever setlist we have, I just look at the people and react. It’s a two-way comment process,” Cal Band founder Dragan Ristic.
He started the group in 1996, when he performed a duet with the Bulgarian singer Violeta Vasileva. However, Ristic accepts 2006, when the first album was recorded, as the official birth year of Cal Band. The name of the formation was chosen because of the meaning of the Sanskrit word “mud” – black.
The group’s latest single is titled “Chapter 23”. “We are strongly influenced by the Roma, by our culture. As you know, there are negotiations between Serbia and the EU. And there is chapter 23. In the second part of it, the EU wants to improve the results of all vulnerable groups, including the Roma. And then Serbia starts an action plan for the inclusion of the Roma population. This plan has been running for 10 years now,” commented Ristic.