Once again with the coming of autumn the festival that makes us look back to the past comes back with one more edition. It takes us to a past when music used to be performed in palaces with magnificent interior. This is the Baroque Art Festival and its 8th edition started in the beginning of October with a concert focused on the younger audience. Parents and children enjoyed the performance of piano duet Vasiliy Ilisavski and Galina Draganova. The program this year focuses on clavier music but in addition to concerts in the spirit of the Baroque, there will be performances that reach beyond the traditional image of the period.

“The opening will be on October 25 in the ceremonial hall of the Sofia University", artistic director Zefira Vulova told Radio Bulgaria. "Together with my colleagues Linda Mancheva and Yavor Genov who are some of the few experts in the sphere of old music and harpsichordist Marianna Henriksson from Finland we shall perform violin sonatas by Bach. They were composed and performed in the Dresden Royal Court. Furthermore music by Veracini, Pisendel, Vivaldi and other composers will be performed.” 
 
Another highlight of the festival is linked to one of my dreams - the formation of a Baroque ensemble. Catalyst for the realization of this idea is pianist Maria Ruseva. She told me she wanted to present the secular cantatas of Bach. Coffee Cantata will be performed on November 4 by Bulgarian soloists and instrumental ensemble. We would not miss to mark the anniversary of perhaps the most successful son of Johann Sebastian Bach - Carl Philipp Emanuel with his Symphony for Strings. 
 
Bulgarian audience will once again enjoy the performance of the Les Ambassadors Ensemble.

"This time the band will be in the company of a new star of the opera stage - countertenor Carlo Vistoli. He will perform virtuoso repertoire, while the ambassadors of Baroque music will present concerts and sonatas. We are to present six piano concerts in three nights. We will offer a solid dose of piano pieces - some of them have not been performed, while others are well known. The concerts will take place on October 28, 31, and November 1 in the Sofia City Art Gallery.  Boyan Vodenitcharov, young piano star Olga Pashchenko, Todor Petrov are just some of the names to perform. The musicians will perform on authentic replicas of the favorite instruments of Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, created by American Paul McNulty.”
 
The culmination of the program will be the music contest between shepherd’s pipe player Nedialko Nedialkov and Erik Bosgraaf. Zefira Vulova told us more about her plan to bring the two musicians together.

"One reason is that Nedialko has already participated in similar projects with Jordi Savall, who is among the most important figures in the field of antique music. Erik Bosgraaf fell in love with the shepherd’s flute and Bulgarian folklore during his first visit to this country 8 years ago. He has long dreamed of performing with Bulgarian musicians. The two have already started discussing the repertoire and I am impatient to see what they would perform."

English: Alexander Markov