Bulgara
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Bulgara

Band World Folk

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"Tonight playing Bulgara!"

Bulgara, the band that uses drum and bass, funk and broken beat to highlight the harmonic beauty of Bulgarian folklore and intertwines jungle, rock and jazz with folk instruments thus getting near the idea of world fusion, exists since 2002.

By creating Bulgara, Kostadin Genchev (kaval) and Kiril Dobrev (drums) give full swing to their musical outlook. Trusting in his experience as player and composer in the folk music orchestra at the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) and as soloist in concerts of The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices and in his participation in the French and Bulgarian project Odysseus, Kosta undertakes the folk music core of Bulgara.

For his part, Kiril, the mastermind of the Fake Band who warmed up for Prodigy in Sofia, a man who worked as composer and arranger for Bulgarian pop and hip-hop performers (Upsurt, the Mangasaryan Brothers), author of the music and sound pictures for performances such as The Divas, At Eye Level, A Teacher’s Thoughts on Folk Art, the Trainers tape and others, rushes into the labyrinth of Bulgara’s unusual musical sound by creating the sound and sampling design.

Stoyan Pavlov skillfully directs the presence of the percussions. The masterly sounds of the gayda /bagpipe/ are entrusted to Petio Petrov, soloist of the folk music orchestra at BNR, the thin strings of the tamboura are pulled by the conductor of the folk music orchestra at BNR Dimitar Hrsitov, the gadulka is in the hands of the band’s first lady, Hristina Beleva (Philip Kutev Ensemble) - a worthy substitute for her foregoer Darinka Tsekova , followed by Eva Perchemlieva – percussions and vocal, while Chavdar Asenov smoothly keeps up the bass line.

A year after Bulgara was founded it won the Askeer Theatre Award for the original music to the theater performance The Divas, after Nikolay Haytov.

The beauty of their music is shared in the film Beyond the Line. Their compositions were noticed by leading jazz figure Milcho Leviev and he invited them as partners in a concert on the Bulgaria Hall prestigious stage.

Upsurt’s album Popfolk would not be the same without the pinch of talent added by Bulgara. In 2004 their merits were noticed not only by the Apolonia audience but also by the French music channel MEZZO, which showed a reportage about them.

At the Sofia Music Jam 2004 they warmed up for the concert of David Garfield and the Cats.

In February 2005 the band made a club tour in Hungary, Austria and Germany and presented our country at the world tourist expos in London, Berlin, Kiev and Moscow. And at the beginning of the summer of 2005 the Bulgara musicians turned upside down the ideas of the world-famous ski resort Maribor (Slovenia), rushing the Bulgarian rhythms headlong down the tracks at the Lent festival there.

At the end of 2005 their first-born album Bear’s Wedding came out and sold out a second circulation despite the free Internet access to all the compositions. Eva Quartet and Milcho Leviev were guest musicians at the promotion.

The year 2006 will remain in Bulgara’s records as the richest, studded with participations in all jazz festivals in Bulgaria, where they played on the stage together with Billy Cobham, Human Touch and Milcho Leviev. From the European stages, beside the club concerts, the brightest memory will be left by their single band concerts in Frankfurt and in the world-famous Joe Zawinul Birdland Club in Vienna.

Also unforgettable is the concert of Al Di Meola, which they were honoured with warming up, as well as their single band concerts in Stuttgart, dedicated to our EU accession, in the London Shaw Theatre and their quite recent participation in Bonn to celebrate the reunification of East and West Germany, which made the German audience start a Bulgarian ring dance.

Fans about Bulgara
Internet quotes

“This music simply thrills you and makes you proud of being a Bulgarian. They are indeed wonderful masters of Bulgarian music. I wish them from all my heart to be alive and healthy, lots of concerts and tours and to go on making us happy with this nice Bulgarian music.”

“I can’t imagine any stuff more inspiring, cool, fashionable, deep, traditional, ours, world-class, gentle and charging than the stuff of Bulgara.”

“Their stage presence is incredible and the music absolutely possessive! They are not only musicians but also artists in the full sense of this word :)”

“I have listened to their album for a long time and I can only say that they are developing into a very good future world-famous group. The album Bear’s Wedding is of the type you play and can listen to all day long without being bored with a single song”

“They are really great… I also saw them in Bansko… no comment… it’s enough that the foreign performers stared at them like stricken goldfish and then they bought their album… that’s it!!!”


- Programata


Discography

Bear's Wedding - CD, 2006
Bulgara Live - CD, 2012

Photos

Bio

A year after Bulgara was founded in 2002 it won the Askeer Theatre Award for the original music to the theater performance The Divas, after Nikolay Haytov.
The beauty of their music is shared in the film Beyond the Line. Their compositions were noticed by leading jazz figure Milcho Leviev and he invited them as partners in a concert on the Bulgaria Hall prestigious stage.
In 2004 their merits were noticed not only by the Apolonia audience but also by the French music channel MEZZO, which showed a reportage about them.
At the Sofia Music Jam 2004 they warmed up for the concert of David Garfield and the Cats.
In February 2005 the band made a club tour in Hungary, Austria and Germany and presented our country at the world tourist expos in London, Berlin, Kiev and Moscow. And at the beginning of the summer of 2005 the Bulgara musicians turned upside down the ideas of the world-famous ski resort Maribor (Slovenia), rushing the Bulgarian rhythms headlong down the tracks at the Lent festival there.
At the end of 2005 their first-born album Bear’s Wedding came out and sold out a second circulation despite the free Internet access to all the compositions. Eva Quartet and Milcho Leviev were guest musicians at the promotion.
The year 2006 will remain in Bulgara’s records as the richest, studded with participations in all jazz festivals in Bulgaria, where they played on the stage together with Billy Cobham, Human Touch and Milcho Leviev. From the European stages, beside the club concerts, the brightest memory will be left by their single band concerts in Frankfurt and in the world-famous Joe Zawinul Birdland Club in Vienna.
Also unforgettable is the concert of Al Di Meola, which they were honoured with warming up, as well as their single band concerts in Stuttgart, dedicated to our EU accession, in the London Shaw Theatre and their quite recent participation in Bonn to celebrate the reunification of East and West Germany, which made the German audience start a Bulgarian ring dance.