The singers: over 550 choristers in half a century

The book’s final section is devoted to the choir’s membership. The author does not repeat the changes already described in the main text, but adds a few observations. Turnover was highest in the women’s sections; in the last 10–15 years new intakes have been mostly women, because the men’s sections are filled by singers who have grown up in the Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir.

His calculations show that after the big cut in membership in 1964 the choir’s average age fell to 32. It then rose steadily, reaching 36–37 in the 1980s – a result of some singers staying for many years, especially among the altos and the men. In recent years the average age has fallen again, as only young women and men have been joining.

Over the fifty years more than 550 women and men sang in Morski Zvutsi. Some went on along the hard road of a singing career – studying at the Music Academy or singing in opera choruses – and many continued in other active choirs. In the author’s view each of them helped the choir stay at the top of choral performance and win recognition at home and abroad; it was their work that drew the cheers “Bravo, Bulgaria! Bravo, Varna!” from the audience in Cork in 1976.

Boychev ends with the hope that the singers of the 50th-anniversary concert will keep the choir at its artistic level and hand it on to worthy successors, and on his own behalf and that of the board he offers them his warmest thanks. The book was published in Varna in 2006 by the Slavena publishing house, edited by Prof. Rositsa Yordanova, with photographs by Vitaliy Zarkov and a cover by Aglika Choneva-Stoilova.