Letters to Europe and gold at the regional round (1983–1984)

In the summer of 1983 Maria Vaygal Popova, a friend of the choir, brought back from Switzerland a contact for exchange visits with choirs from Winterthur. The board immediately wrote a letter with an invitation to the May competition of 1985 (in 1984 the National Festival was being held and there would be no competition). On 25 July rehearsals began for the 90th anniversary of the Varna party organisation – including a chorus from “Nabucco” and “Alen mak” with the soloist Stefan Tsiganchev – together with the Shipbuilders’ Choir and the Varna Opera chorus and orchestra under Nedyalko Nedyalkov.

Because of a 40-singer limit – almost half the choir – Morski Zvutsi gave up the competition in Tolosa and asked the Centre for Amateur Arts to switch it to Cantonigròs near Barcelona, where numbers were not restricted. On 9 October the choir took part in the Pancho Vladigerov Music Days – Shumen ’83: despite the morning hour the theatre was full, and the musicians gave glowing reviews. Before that, on 6 October, the choir had sung for the People’s Artist Bobevski and for a visitor from the United States – the leader of a Bulgarian song group who had come to study folk singing; the link with her was kept up by the singer Vesela Ilieva.

On 20 October the invitation from Cantonigròs arrived, though the set pieces were still missing. With no answer from Switzerland, the choir’s friend Rosemarie Hayduk of Idar-Oberstein was asked to look for partners in Germany and the Netherlands. An invitation to a festival in Alva, Spain, was declined – again only 40 singers were allowed. On 3 November the choir sang for singing teachers from north-east Bulgaria, and on 17 November, together with the pensioners’ women’s choir, it celebrated the 80th birthday of its long-serving singer Zina Popova. The choir’s funds were exhausted “to the last stotinka” – something that had never happened before.

On 29 November the choir sang for the 50th anniversary of the Union of Bulgarian Composers, and on 14 December, at the regional round of the 6th National Festival of Amateur Arts, it again won the title of laureate and a gold medal. The next day it took part in a concert for 75 years of the Scientific and Technical Union.

Soon after the New Year break, on 10 January 1984, came news of the death of Padre Pio Capone of Italy, a great friend of the choir. On 17 January Veneta Vicheva visited a rehearsal, and soon Chonev received the Golden Lyre award of the Union of Musicians. The board tackled absences: some singers were let go, while Krasimira Choneva returned after a two-year break. At the end of February, for Amateur Artists’ Day, Rositsa Shchereva conducted a festive concert in the full hall of the House of Amateur Arts, and Chonev praised both the choir and her.