Ramona writing:
July 24th marked our debut performance at a Bulgarian festival. We were invited to attend the 10th annual International Folklore Festival "Silver Buckle" in Kyustendil. For this appearance, we are very grateful to have received at travel grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Three cheers for arts funding! (And again, thank you, to our private donors who helped us accomplish this great feat).
The drive from Bansko to Kyustendil was long and all the ladies were quite tired when we arrived. As we drove into Kyustendil it was rumored that we would visit with the Pautalia Chetalishte as they were the cultural center organizing the festival, however, as we were slightly late in arriving, it was happily decided that we would first eat lunch. The festival director himself, Valentine Kenov, as well as our festival liaison from the chetalishte and municipality, Ludmila "Lucy" Cheresharka, led us directly to our meal. It was served quicker than any other meal we have yet had and for that, we were quite grateful. Once we were shown to our hotel and given a moment to refresh and change into our performance clothing, we again hopped on the bus and gathered with all the other international performers. We all paraded through town and ended at the stage where the performances were held. All the other international groups were both musicians and dancers. This year the other international performers were from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey. We were the only choir group given the privilege of opening the festival! Also, we are the first American group to perform there. The remainder of the choirs and dance groups who did not parade were from all over Bulgaria and they performed over the course of the next few days.
The sun was bright, we were sweating profusely, and the sound system was not optimal. However, the songs we chose to sing surprised the audience and caught their attention so that despite the heat and poorer than expected sound, they were really engaged. Once, when we looked at the audience, we recognized the vice-mayor singing along as well as many other faces in the crowd. They enjoyed our "Shopski Pripevki" (medley from the Shope area) so much that there was clapping before the song even finished. Of all the songs we sang, this set of songs has ornamentation and melodies which are closest to the Kyustendil region's traditional songs. The audience really seemed to enjoy this in particular. One lady found us afterward and mentioned how excited she was to have seen us on TV earlier and then to realized that we had come in person to Kyustendil. It makes us feel like celebrities :) Dina was interviewed by one TV station and two other reporters after the parade finished and before the festival officially opened. We have been so busy that we have yet to see the filmed footage of this interview and our actual performance but the camera crew was there broadcasting all along.
After we sang, we were presented with a very special award which you can see above and below. This is what a "Pafta" or "buckle" looks like and ours is quite heavy! The hosts of the festival were moved by our singing and we were so pleased to have sung well. When they presented the honor to us, everyone was very touched and emotional. Thank goodness our voices were still strong after so much intense traveling.
After we finished singing we were able to meet some of the other performance groups. Jen, in particular, made a potential connection with the group "Kargi" from Tbilisi, Georgia. I was most interested in connecting with the group "Karposh" from Krival Palanka, Macedonia in hopes that we would be able to perform at their home festival. Lucy, our liaison, also turns out to be a wonderful connection. She and Tsvetanka both studied at Kotel together, though they were a few years apart, and while we did not know this when we applied to perform at this festival, meeting her will hopefully be a great boon for us in the future. Dina met with the vice-mayor and her secretary at a special breakfast the following morning. All-in-all, it was a fabulous experience and we are so glad to have this opportunity to share our music with this audience. Thank you, MidAtlantic Arts Foundation and Pautalia Chetalishte's Sreburna Pafta!
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