Brahms again, Greece and Theo Fürst’s Messe in F (2003–2004)

For the Fifth International Conducting Course the choir learned Brahms’s German Requiem. It had sung the work at the Choralies in France in 1990, but the choir had changed completely since then and few remembered it, so it had to be learned anew rather than revived. At the concerts of 1 June 2003 in the Dobrich Hall in Dobrich and on 2 June at the Festival and Congress Centre in Varna, movements of the Requiem were conducted by course participants – from the USA, China and Great Britain – with the Sinfonietta orchestra, soloists Ariana Simpson and Rostislav Peev, and the choir of Charleston Southern University (USA) taking part. The last concert of the season was on 18 August 2003 in Didymoteicho, Greece; the book also reproduces a poster for a concert by the choir under Marin Chonev at the Municipal Theatre of Corfu.

After a short holiday two concerts lay ahead for the Sixth International Conducting Course. Meanwhile, on 1 May 2004, the choir took part in the concert of Varna’s choirs at the Art Gallery for the centenary of Prof. Georgi Dimitrov’s birth. On 21 May 2004 it sang a cappella Bulgarian and sacred songs, among them long-unsung pieces such as Georgi Dimitrov’s “Vecherniy zdrach” (Evening dusk), Parashkev Hadzhiev’s “Nad sanniya Lyulin” (Above sleepy Lyulin) and Ivan Spasov’s “Esenen pat” (Autumn road), joined by singers from the Oklahoma Baptist University choir. On 30 May 2004 Beethoven’s Mass in C major and Bizet’s Te Deum were performed: the movements were conducted by course participants Carolai Carsen (USA), Yana Deliradeva, Silviya Georgieva and Shannon Jeffries (USA), the soloists were Mary Peel, Boyka Vasileva, Jayoon Kim and Richard Conand, and the choir was joined by the University of South Carolina Concert Choir.

On 15 August 2004 a “Harbour Concert” was held at the main entrance to the Sea Garden, broadcast live across Europe by West German Radio 4; Morski Zvutsi took part mainly with a cappella songs by Bulgarian composers. At the suggestion of the choir’s great friend, the conductor and composer Theo Fürst of Idar-Oberstein, the choir learned his Messe in F and in September 2004 went on a concert tour of Germany, at an invitation marking 25 years of friendship with the Grubscher choir. A poster is also reproduced for the benefit concert in the Catholic parish church at Kirn, whose proceeds went to the school for the blind in Varna.