Gorizia 1972: first place in polyphony

After a two-week break the “Italian” ensemble resumed rehearsals – and was immediately set a new task. Gorizia wrote that “Damyan tanets vodi” and “Nani mi nani, Damyancho” were not admissible for lack of polyphony, so two new songs had to be chosen and learned quickly. The final programme was: in the polyphony group, the compulsory “Omnes populi”, Todor Popov’s “Stara se mayka ne lozhe” and G. Dimitrov’s “Lika-prilika”; in the folklore group, Dobri Hristov’s “Momkovi pesni” (“Mari mome”, “Temna magla”, “Slana padna, Gane”), Kr. Kyurkchiyski’s “O, Yano” and G. Dimitrov’s “Seyala e malka moma”.

Through letters from the executive committee of the City People’s Council, Chonev arranged for the singers to be released from work three afternoons a week throughout August; only two were refused. The schedule was strict: the women rehearsed on Mondays and Wednesdays, the men on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the whole ensemble on Fridays; newly admitted tenors and basses had to be trained in a hurry. At the end of August Padre Pio Capone came. Besides the competition pieces he asked to hear “Nani mi nani, Damyancho”, kept for the Padua concert, was struck by the rhythm of “Lika-prilika” and thanked the soloist Radka Andreeva. To get used to unfamiliar surroundings, the choir also rehearsed in the poor acoustics of the House of Amateur Arts, where it sang the whole programme at a session of the District People’s Council and, the next day, before a panel from Sofia: Prof. G. Dimitrov, Samuil Vidas, Liliya Gyuleva, Emil Yanev and Donka Bozadzhieva. On 15 September, at a concert for the singers’ families in the Jewish House, Lyuba Lipova thanked them for the sacrifices made for the choir’s sake.

The choir left Varna on 17 September, accompanied by Donka Bozadzhieva, chair of the Central House for Folk Art, the composer Evgeni Cheshmedzhiev and Kunka Nedyalkova of the newspaper Narodna Mladezh. On 20 September, the day they arrived, a try-out showed that the voices were going flat from fatigue. On 21 September the 11th Cesare Augusto Seghizzi International Choral Competition opened. The choir, with 40 singers in the polyphony category, was drawn second to last and took the stage around midnight; that year the jury was for the first time split into two panels, to break up any voting blocs.

The singers gave everything, yet the news of first place still overwhelmed them. Petar Vitanov wrote in Narodno Delo (no. 238, 8 October 1972) that among nearly 40 choirs from all over Europe Morski Zvutsi scored 96.8 points out of 100 in the polyphony category, winning first place and the sculpture of Victory; second was the choir of Perugia with 95.1 points. In 1972 it was the only Bulgarian choir to win first prize in the mixed-choir section of an international competition. Mariano Mioli, composer of the compulsory piece, said that listening to the choir he had felt he was dreaming, and maestro Evangelista Nicolini, conductor of the Perugia choir, called the singers “superb, even exceptional” and told his own choristers they would have to work hard to become like them.