A masked ball, Golden Diana ’80 and the 13th May Choral Festival (1980)

As tradition required, before 8 March 1980 the choir honoured its women members, with a lengthy address by Kosta Levkov. The anniversary committee went through the plan presented by Stoyan Boychev; a telex went off to Turku, but no answer came. Repairs to the rehearsal hall dragged on, and Ivan Marinov never called again about Denmark – the St. Obretenov Choral Chapel from Sofia was engaged instead. Zahari Mednikarov, Honoured Artist, visited a rehearsal. On 22 March the tenor section organised the first masked ball in the choir’s history, whose comic moments were talked about for a long time.

In April the choir’s own concert at the May Festival was dropped; what remained was the opening with orchestra, a lecture-concert for visiting musicians and Varna Summer ’80. On 10 April Turku’s refusal arrived: its choirs were private and could not host 100 people. Chonev turned to Pio Capone in Padua, asking him to bring forward the visit to Italy planned for 1981.

The chamber choir worked hard for Golden Diana ’80 in Yambol and on 20 April gave an excellent concert. Especially striking were G. Dimitrov’s “Vecherniy zdrach”, St. Mutafchiev’s “Syala y moma ran bosilek” and the “Dies irae” from Cherubini’s Requiem; after an encore of the Latvian sailors’ song the audience would not settle until the choir also sang a verse of Shostakovich’s “Song of the Forests”. The chamber choir received a diploma, a medal, a statuette and flowers.

On 24 April, after rehearsal, the choir honoured Lyuba Lipova – its founder and long-time chair – with a porcelain set inscribed “Morski Zvutsi”; by chance Andrzej Lewandowski, conductor of the Gdańsk Polytechnic choir, was also there. With no invitation from Finland the road to the West seemed closed, but Prof. Reinhard Post from West Germany happened to be with Pio Capone and promised an exchange with a West German choir. Lewandowski asked for a place for his choir at the festival, but later wired that the Gdańsk singers could not come.

At the opening of the 13th May Choral Festival the full choir sang with the symphony orchestra under Aleksey Izmirliev – S. Tulikov’s “Lenin Is Always with You”, T. Popov’s “Invasion” and Al. Tanev’s “The Very First Spark”. A conference on choral performance, led by Prof. Venelin Krastev, was held in the choir’s rehearsal hall, where Chonev demonstrated how he rehearses; those present asked for his talk to be printed for all choir leaders. Morski Zvutsi hosted the Academic Choir from Rostock. At the closing on 18 May, after Anna Trichkova presented the choir with the prize of the Union of Bulgarian Musicians and the organising committee’s prize, Chonev lowered the festival flag. Soon afterwards Prof. Post agreed that the choir could visit West Germany in September 1980.