Nadka Karadzhova – Pazardzhishki pesni

Obicham, mamo (I like it, mother)
Sitno hodi, Nedo (Walk slowly, Neda)
Snaha na dever govori (A sister-in-law said to her brother-in-law)
Proklet da e, mila mamo (Damned be it, mother)
Oy, Yano, Yano (Oh, Yana, Yana)
Mari mome (Hey maiden)

Polegnale e Gergana (Gergana has lain down)
Zadali mi se (Zadali mi se (Well, they were coming)
Stano ma (Hey, Stana)
Mayka Kalina dumashe (Mother said to Kalina)
Irino le, Irinke (Hey, Irina, Irinka)
Georgi Nedelya proshtava (Georgi forgave Nedelya)

I have known Nadka Karadzhova since 1953 when she first appeared at an audition and was accepted in the Choir of the State Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances, later named after Filip Kutev. Filip Kutev himself had found her at a singing competition in Plovdiv. She was born in 1937 in the village of Tri Voditsi, the district of Pazardzhik.

The young singing girl whom her colleagues in the Ensemble lovingly nicknamed Chick, has grown up as a woman, singer, and artist in the Ensemble, to become an indisputable performer both in the choral songs and as a soloist, as well as a performer of folk songs of her native parts.

Her repertoire is rich, stylish, vivid. It would never, however, have become so famous, if it had not been for her perfect performance. Nadka Karadzhova has been the lucky successor of a region in Bulgaria which is extraordinary even for the singing traditions of this country; it is an original, beautiful, accomplished blending of the traditions in Thrace, Southern Bulgaria, and those of Western Bulgaria. Endowed with a beautiful ringing voice, Nadka performs the complex ornaments effortlessly and naturally, thus turning them into a miraculous fairy tale of a song. Her singing inspires lightness, the sound of spring, bells, and love. Her sunny temperament is her greatest asset. Hence the emphatic humane optimism in her slow songs. In one of these, "A little bird is singing," she freely expresses her joy with singing for the people. The song seems to have been composed for her alone. She is able, on the other hand, to reveal the profound wisdom of dramatic songs like Planino, stara planino (Mountain, old mountain) by Stefan Dragostinov, Pilentse pee, govori (A little bird is singing and saying) by Krasimir Kyurkchiyski, or Dragana i slaveyat (Dragana and the nightingale) by Filip Kutev.

These are the reasons for Nadka Karadzhova being warmly accepted and admired not only in Bulgaria, but also throughout the world, in old traditional Europe, in dynamic America, especially in distant Asia, in Africa, which is so different. I think she could have her moving individual impact even outside our planet.

Nadka could release a limitless number of records all of them meeting the most fastidious requirements because she has acquired and mastered the whole range of songs both artistically and stylistically and has been performing them with the purity and freshness of her love for the people and the world. – Mariya Kuteva

Recorded at the National Palace of Culture in February, 1990