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Rebeck and guitar in hand, and in some pieces with their voices, in their new album Let Me Tell You Hristina Beleva and Petar Milanov give expression to their love of folklore. The combination of instruments they use to “tell” their story is unorthodox but very beautiful. Hristina and Petar met when they were in the Philip Koutev folklore ensemble. Together they were part of different projects: at the Varna Summer festival with La Migra trio, in Kamen Donev’s Orkesturchi, the Melancholic Beauty oratorio by Georgy Andreev.

Each of them is part of different formations – Hristina is with the Bulgara group, Petar takes part in projects by shepherd’s pipe player Teodossy Spassov. What does this second joint album feature:

“It is one more step in our professional development,” Petar Milanov says. “It conveys our feelings for and sensibility of with folk music. When we compose our pieces we never think of the financial side of things. The whole process of work takes place while we are actually playing. I use the guitar to lend harmony to the pieces. Many people tend to think the most difficult thing is to come up with a project and to bring the right people together. In our case this happened incredibly quickly and easily, though in terms of management things are much more difficult. That is the reason why we organize everything ourselves and rely mostly on friends.”

Hristina Beleva and Petar Milanov launched their project in 2011. That was when they recorded their first album called In Focus. The second album – Let Me Tell You develops their ideas further. Both musicians have their own individual style of interpretation. Hristina overcame her prejudices regarding the role of the rebeck in modern music long ago and has successfully been using it in different genres. But what goes into the making of good music, the kind of music that comes from the hands and the soul?

“Once we discovered each other we started developing our musical ideas together,” says Hristina. “Proof of this is this new album. We set great stock by the melody but also the harmony of the compositions and we are constantly looking to diversify the sound. And the result is a spontaneous interpretation of folklore. This makes traditional music much more intelligible to young people. When I myself was a little girl my friends used to tease me for playing the rebeck. And they constantly asked me – why not piano or violin? Fortunately, I stood my ground and now, years later I can say I am happy to be playing this instrument. People changed the way they look at the rebeck and now have a more positive attitude to it.”

English version: Milena Daynova

The audio features the following pieces from the album Let Me Tell You:

-  Walking in the Rain;

-  Let me tell you;

-  Carnation.