An order for the jubilee and the Ninth Symphony (1982)

There was no rest after the jubilee: ahead lay Stefan Mutafchiev’s cantata “Bright Day”, with the Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir, for the opening of the May Choral Festival, and Aleksandar Raychev’s symphony-cantata “He Does Not Die”, which was to open Varna Summer ’82. The score and parts were borrowed from the Choral Capella in Sofia, but the work was difficult and learning went slowly. On 1 April word came that the choir would not perform it after all – and the 150 leva paid for copying went to waste. Chonev cut rehearsals to two a week, while the season continued with a TV broadcast of the Sofia concert (11 April), a part in the ceremony for Lenin’s birthday (22 April) and a concert for the teachers of the Dr P. Beron Teachers’ Training Institute (3 May).

For the visit of the Neptun chamber choir from Rostock (13–17 May), the rehearsal hall at last had to get its windows; the frames, made by the consumer-goods workshop of the G. Dimitrov combine, were fitted on 12 May – a major undertaking taken on by Stoyan Boychev. On 14 May the 15th May Choral Festival opened, and Anna Trichkova announced that from then on it would bear the name “Prof. Georgi Dimitrov”. Morski Zvutsi and the Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir also sang together – three generations of singers on one stage. The German guests exceeded expectations, and the two choirs met in the foyer of the Chayka hotel at the Druzhba resort.

From 25 May the choir took up Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony again; new singers learned it in extra sessions with Rositsa Shchereva. Soon after 24 May the singers congratulated Marin Chonev on the title of People’s Artist. By Decree No. 1384 of 31 May 1982 the State Council awarded the choir the Order of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 2nd class, for high achievement in choral art and for its 25th anniversary (published in the State Gazette, No. 52, 2 July 1982). On 8 June the choir also sang at the celebration of 25 years of Balkanturist.

No rehearsals with the People’s Artist Ivan Marinov had been planned for the Ninth, so the singers had to follow his requirements “from memory”. Since the reduced choir could not hold its own against the orchestra, the Rodna Pesen choir from Burgas was brought in for the concert marking the centenary of Georgi Dimitrov’s birth. It took place on 17 June at the Palace of Culture and Sports. A meeting with a visiting Estonian choir followed (25–26 June), and Chonev gathered a group of 30 to help Rodna Pesen perform the symphony in Burgas under Emil Chakarov – but that concert was postponed to September.

The new season began on 30 August with photographs for the LP cover – in the rehearsal hall and, on 2 September, by the Pantheon in the Sea Garden. Posters for new members brought in plenty of sopranos, few altos and hardly any men. Despite the incomplete line-up, on 20 September the choir sang in the Internacional hall at Golden Sands for the International Miners’ Congress. That season two new songs were dedicated to the choir – Aleksandar Tekeliev’s “Winter Memory” and Ivan Spasov’s “Requiem”, of which it would give the first performances.