Founder of the “Morski Zvutsi” Choir

Prof. Marin Chonev

1932  ·  2012

For fifty-five years without interruption he stood before the “Morski Zvutsi” choir. In that time he turned a city ensemble into a name known on Europe’s choral stages, founded the Varna Boys’ Choir, launched Varna’s May choir competition, and left behind a choral school that today bears his name.

Portrait

The Man Who Made Varna a Choral City

Marin Chonev (1932 - 2012) is tied to the choral art of Varna in a way few people are tied to a city. Conductor, teacher, organizer and public figure, he worked on three fronts at once: building ensembles, building the people to lead them, and building the stage on which they could be heard.

The result is rare in Bulgarian culture: not a single success, but an entire infrastructure. A mixed choir, a boys’ and youth choir, an international competition, a conductors’ course, an international music academy, a university music department, a network of teachers’ choirs across Northeastern Bulgaria. Each of these outlived its creator.

He did not simply conduct choirs. He created the environment in which choral singing could exist.

1956 - 2011

The “Morski Zvutsi” Choir

In April 1956, immediately after graduating in the class of Prof. Georgi Dimitrov, Marin Chonev founded Varna’s representative mixed choir. A year later the ensemble took the name of the famed Varna choir “Morski Zvutsi” of the past, which had ceased to exist – linking the new choir to an even older singing tradition. Chonev remained its principal conductor without interruption until the end of 2011. Fifty-five years at the helm of one ensemble has few parallels in European choral practice.

The repertoire he built was deliberately broad: works by Bulgarian and foreign choral composers from the Renaissance to the present day, Eastern Orthodox chant, and the great cantata-oratorio literature. Among the titles are Cherubini’s “Requiem”, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells”, Shostakovich’s “Song of the Forests”, Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater”, Brahms’s “German Requiem”, the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi, Bach’s “Magnificat”, Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex”, as well as works by Alexander Raychev, Stefan Dragostinov, Milko Kolarov and Dobri Hristov.

Under his direction the choir won top honours – among them eight first prizes – at the international competitions in Middlesbrough, Gorizia, Cork, Cantonigròs and Varna. It performed across Europe, took part in the Europa Cantat choral-symphonic ateliers in Autun and Vaison-la-Romaine (France), repeatedly opened the Varna Summer International Festival, and made two major tours of the USA with more than 40 concerts. For nearly a quarter of a century the conductor Rositsa Shtereva worked alongside him in the choir’s artistic life.

19 November 1969

The Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir

On 19 November 1969 Chonev founded the Varna Boys’ Choir, effectively launching the concert life of boys’ choirs in Bulgaria outside the capital.

The idea was innovative in its organization as well. In 1976, for the first time in the country, young men whose voices had changed were included alongside the boys, singing as tenors and basses – so a singer could remain in the choir on his whole journey from boy to man, and the ensemble could perform both as a mixed choir and as an independent male choir. Today the school maintains around one hundred boys and young men in several formations. For twenty-three years the conductor Darina Krosneva-Stamenova took part in the choir’s artistic and educational work.

With this choir Chonev won the Grand Prize at the song competition in Rostock, Germany, and the highest award Summa cum laude at the choral competition in Neerpelt, Belgium. Honours followed from Montreux, Poznań, Delphi, Shumen and Gabrovo, and concert tours took the ensemble through Poland, Germany, Greece, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy and the USA.

The Forum

The May Choir Competition

Marin Chonev initiated and created Varna’s choir competition, first held in 1975. Since 1982 the forum has carried the name of his teacher, Prof. Georgi Dimitrov.

Today the “Prof. Georgi Dimitrov” International May Choir Competition is part of the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing, placing it among the most prestigious competitions in the world. Chonev remained its president until the end of his life.

In 1997 the International Course for Conductors of Choral and Cantata-Oratorio Music was launched, with Marin Chonev as its director. At its heart was the idea and initiative of his son Kalin Chonev, living in the USA, for academic and musical exchange between the two countries.

1999

The International Music Academy

The academy was born from the idea and initiative of Kalin Chonev, who has lived in the USA since 1995 and whose goal was to create academic and musical exchange between Bulgaria and America. In 1999 he founded it together with his father. It takes place in Bulgaria, and later in other countries as well, with its seat from the very beginning in Columbia, South Carolina, USA.

Kalin Chonev has been the academy’s executive director since its founding, managing, together with his wife Sharon, all administrative, financial and organizational activities. At his invitation, thousands of American musicians have taken part over the years. Marin Chonev was one of its principal lecturers.

The Teacher

Academic and Educational Work

Chonev was a professor of choral conducting at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv. He also taught at the Department for Teachers’ Qualification in Varna. In 1985 he became the first head of the newly created Music department at the Higher Pedagogical Institute in Shumen, today the Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen. In 2000 the university awarded him the title doctor honoris causa.

A separate and little-known part of his work was with teachers’ choirs. He was the only conductor to head teachers’ choral ensembles in Northeastern Bulgaria – an initiative that united the region’s music educators, raised their qualification and brought singing back to schools.

Generations of singers and conductors passed through his hands. Much of Varna’s choral life today is led by his students.

Recognition

Honours

Chronology

The Journey

Why It Matters Today

An Archive That Still Sounds

Behind fifty-five years of concert life stands a vast sound and documentary archive: recordings, programmes, posters, photographs, correspondence. Much of it has not been digitized and is not accessible to those who would seek it.

If you have recordings, photographs or memories from the years of Prof. Chonev, please get in touch with us.