"Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Thracian suite
Kafal sviri (a kaval plays)
Trugnali mi sa / Mari Dimke (they started leaving / hey Dimke)
Aishinko, pilya shereno (Aishinko, my pet)
Mama na ivan doumashe (Mother was telling Ivan)

Baino mi sa, lyube le, pozakani (My elder brother threatened to beat me)
Mesechko (Moon)
Ot izvor voda nalivat (Drawing water from the spring)
Gruncharsko horo (Potter's Horo)
Goro le, sitna, zelena (Hey, green copse)
Festive song

A genuine fairy-show – that is how the performances of the "Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble, with Chief Artistic Leader People's Kiril Djenev, can be called. They re-create a profound and emotional art emerging from the bowels of the Bulgarian soil, from the unique beauty of the Bulgarian musical and dance folklore.

Young singers, instrumentalists, and dancers – all of them graduates from the Musical schools in Kotel and Shiroka Luka and from the Plovdiv Higher Music-Pedagogical Institute, work energetically and with all their hearts in the Ensemble, the youngest in Bulgaria, founded in Plovdiv in 1974.

The creative activities of the three groups of the Ensemble – dance, instrumental, and vocal, merge harmoniously into one another, complementing one another, reaching performing synchronism. The dance is not simply movement, it is experience as well, something closer and truer to the original. The dancers and instrumentalists sing, the singers play and dance. Thus they convey the atmosphere of a public revelry, a public holiday which goes beyond the narrow frame of the stage and takes the audience to a village in front of a house, in the street, or in the square. With the power of its complex influence the "Trakiya" Ensemble takes us back to something both centuries-old and contemporary.

All the members of this creative collective, driven by pure love for the folklore work wholeheartedly and with all their energy. Noteworthy is the Ensemble's enthusiasm and while in contact with its art, an emanation is felt, which conquers the audience and holds it captive for a long time. The performers' youth and talent, the purity of style, expressed in their music, dances, and folk costumes, have effect upon the audience and attract it with a magical force.

The merging of the separate fragments of a performance into one another, the stage presence of each of the performers, the flexible composition contribute to the overall presentation of a program. Lyricism and dramaticism succeed each other on the stage, the tempo, and the rhythm change, a constant movement is felt. Songs and instrumental solos are interwoven in the scenic action. The interaction between the basic expressive elements: song, instrumental music, and dance, leads to their mutual infiltration. The penetration of dance elements in the programs increases the emotional impact of the performance. The instrumental and song coloring lends the dance a particular distinctiveness. One of the strongest means of expression in the Ensemble's interpretation is the contrast, applied with measure in the composition of the whole performance.

The concerts of the "Trakiya" Ensemble are loudly applauded both at home and abroad. Moving manifestations of friendship are its guest tours in Italy, Austria, Hungary, the USSR, the GDR, France, Algeria, India, Syria, Finland, Colombia, Mexico ...

Recorded at the Studio of Radio Plovdiv – 1982