Autumn 1977: Friendship in Shumen, Vidin and Plovdiv, and opening the Panorama

The 1977–1978 season began with sad news: on 5 September the singers attended the funeral of Arsen Torosyan, one of the choir’s founders, and that same evening sang in a holiday concert at the Palace of Culture and Sports, the next day for the workers of the Shipbuilding corporation, and on 7 September at the city’s gala assembly in the Drama Theatre. The rehearsal-hall problem grew worse: the choir had been rehearsing temporarily in the Thracian House, then returned to the Jewish House, where renovation resumed only in mid-September. Rehearsals moved to the beer hall of the House of Amateur Art, where sections could not work separately and the full choir barely fitted; the Stefan Karadzha school and a hall in the architects’ block fell through, and the board proposed an outside staircase so that the upper floor of the Jewish House could be used despite the works. The board also discussed a request from Balkanturist for the chamber choir to sing for German tourists, and the invitation to the Panorama of Bulgarian Choral Art, whose first concert marked the 25th anniversary of Prof. Georgi Dimitrov’s choral conducting class at the Conservatory.

On 29 September Ivan Vulpe, Honoured Artist, came with his orchestra for the first joint rehearsal of the oratorio “Friendship” and was so pleased with the choir’s preparation that he wanted no further rehearsals except on stage in Shumen. On 15 October the oratorio rang out confidently and impressively in the Shumen theatre – it was also Vulpe’s first concert with the Shumen orchestra – and the choir was showered with flowers from the town’s cultural and public institutions. On 7 October the choir kept its promise to Balkanturist with a programme in the Kazino, Madara and Yalta restaurants, and at the end of the month it travelled by coach to Vidin to sing “Friendship” under Andrey Andreev, with Mihail Mateev, a soloist of the Varna Opera, singing both the tenor and bass solos (the concert was on 29 October).

On 3 November a group of singers paid their last respects to Atanas Vodenicharov – the second singer the choir had lost in two months. On 4 November the choir sang in the combined choir for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution and that night left for Plovdiv, where, again under Andrey Andreev, it performed “Friendship” as part of the Alyosha festival of Soviet song.

After that everything was devoted to Sofia. On 11 November the choir travelled on the Golden Sands express and the evening train, and on 12 November 1977 in the Bulgaria Hall it opened the Panorama of Bulgarian Choral Art with “Rodna pesen”, followed by G. Dimitrov’s “Evening Dusk”, Tchaikovsky’s “Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen” and St. Mutafchiev’s “Echo” (T. Popov’s “Invasion”, requested by the organisers, was dropped at Chonev’s insistence because there was no time to learn it). With “Evening Dusk” the choir paid tribute to Prof. Georgi Dimitrov; the climax was once again Tchaikovsky, with cries of “Bravo!” in the hall. At the end all participants greeted Prof. Dimitrov on stage. In Narodno Delo (25 November) Y. Aleksandrov wrote that the Panorama, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of October and the centenary of Bulgaria’s liberation, had been opened by the Varna choir, and that the applause confirmed the acclaim it had won during the anniversary year.