"Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Issued 1979

Kazatsite (The Cossacks) also known as Vrabcheto (sparrow)
Gaydarsko Horo (Bagpiper's Horo)
Gyore, staro libe (Gyore, old chap) (also known as Sednalo e Gyoredo)
Mari Mariyke (I say, Mariyka)
Kasapsko Horo (Butcher's Horo)
Ey, ptichko (Eh, bird)
Mari mome (I say, maiden)
Preminula bela beka (A white lamb has passed along)

Haskovska syuita (Suite of Haskovo)
Sûbrali misa sûbrali (They have gathered)
Buchemish (Hemlock)
Mesechko (Moon)
Lyubyat se Todor i Rada (Todor and Rada are in love)
Ignatovsko Horo (Horo from the village of Ignatovo)
Kalina mome (Kalina maiden)

Founded less than 5 years ago (September 1974), the "Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble is composed of young vocalists, instrumentalists, and dancers, most of whom are graduates from different musical, folklore, and choreographic schools throughout the land. At the moment many of them are students at the Higher Musical and Pedagogical Institute in the town of Plovdiv.

The aim and ambition of the ensemble is to preserve and promote the popular vocal, musical, and dancing heritage of Thrace and to bring it to the attention of wide audiences at home and abroad. The concert-spectacles of the "Trakiya" Ensemble are original, homogeneous programs of which the songs, dances, melodies, and plastic pictures merge into one another, without alternating as separate numbers or scenes. The three basic formations of the ensemble – choir, orchestra, and dance group, can be distinguished only conditionally, because the singers dance and play on different instruments, the instrumentalists – sing and dance, while the dancers – sing!

On the basis of the purity, force, and characteristic features of the national folklore – combined with a very wide fantasy refined feeling for artistic criterion and originality, the "Trakiya" Ensemble discloses in an almost authentic manner or in contemporary musical and dancing interpretations – genuine gems of Bulgarian folk art.

The elaboration of the musical programme has been entrusted to the young but already well-established composers – Stefan Mutafchiev, Nikolay Stoykov, and Todor Prashtakov.

The inspired performances of the "Trakiya" Ensemble received a particularly high appraisal already at the First Review of the State and Professional Ensembles for Folk Songs and Dances, which was held in Blagoevgrad in 1976. Both the specialists and the press reviews qualified its performances as: "innovatory spectacles brimming over with discoveries;" "A qualitatively new art which breaks up all traditional forms;" "a qualitatively new art which breaks up all traditional forms;" "an example for making contacts with contemporary audiences;" "the climax of the Review;" "the great surprise – atomic blast of the Review."

During its rather short existence the art of the "Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble acquired a wide popularity in the land. Its exuberance and optimistic performances were also well accepted by audiences in many countries of Europe, Asia, and America. Numerous affirmative reviews about the exceptional art of the Ensemble have appeared in the press media, both at home and abroad.

The present album consists of independent performances of the choir, the soloists, and the orchestra of the "Trakiya" Folk Ensemble, alongside with dance pieces in which all the members of the company take an active part. – Dimitr Dragnev

Recorded in 1979