The Alarma Punk Jazz Festival, organized by the Bulgarian National Radio, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The foundation of the festival is a radio broadcast and a radio host – Tsvetan Tsvetanov:

“I have been a radio host for 25 years, as I have spent 17 years out of them in the Bulgarian National Radio. Before that I used to work in smaller radio stations,” Tsvetan says. “In 2000, I lost part of my hearing and it was impossible to continue my music career. When something like that happens to a young person, he quite naturally asks himself how to go on. I started traveling around the world for the sole purpose of listening to music. In 2003, in Slovenia I heard a concert by John Zorn and Electric Masada at Cankarjev Dom. The concert was recorded by Tzadik and the album "In the Mountains of Madness" was released in 2005 - a legendary concert and legendary record. For 5-6 years I had visited a big number of festivals - both close and distant, but on the Balkans I managed to create my ‘network’ and learn from the best. There are festivals where you meet not only certain performers, but it seems as if you can ‘hear the world’. For example, at the Skopje Jazz Festival, I interviewed Ron Carter; I met Ornette Coleman and a number of famous musicians who are no longer among the living. For a 28-year-old man back then I had listened to so much music I was literally overloaded with information, but I saw how things were positioned in the free world - all this happened before I started working on Alarma Punk Jazz. The festival emerged spontaneously in an attempt to fill some gaps in the way festivals are being organized in Bulgaria. I have not stopped asking questions. For example, how come I am the first one to have invited a number of famous musicians who are already heading to their sunset to Bulgaria?”

Indeed, Alarma Punk Jazz presents names that are not so popular to Bulgarians or have not performed on Bulgarian stage yet. The palette of styles is very large. What is the unifying force?

“When I talk about my music preferences, I am very grateful to American musician, actor, philosopher John Lurie for his definition that gave the name to his record label - Strange and Beautiful Music. Let me remind you that Alarma is a radio show part of the Hristo Botev program, oriented to social and civic topics and it was in its framework where the festival was born. The music we present has a message and reflects on the reality we live in. The broadcast starts at 21:30 to 23:00 - a very appropriate time for live transmission. And the spectrum between punk and jazz is ... everything. This is the music we present. We started in November 2008. Before that, for several years I used to go to the concerts in Second Studio, which were organized by Milen Panayotov. From him I learned a number of details in the organization of such events. Until 2012, the festival was held twice a year within five consecutive days, as concerts were entirely transmitted on air no matter where the concerts were. Later, we had to split the festival into monthly concerts, which I called concert series. This proved to be more convenient for the audience.”

There are two more concerts part of the program of Alarma Punk Jazz remaining until the end of the year. On November 23, Eyot from Serbia will play in the First Studio of the Bulgarian National Radio. This will be the sixth visit of the band to Bulgaria over the past 7 years.

“They call them ‘Nirvana in European jazz’. Their music is introspective jazz with a strong melodic line, as Balkan rhythms are present in a very refined way. They were in Bulgaria for the first time in 2011 at our festival. It was their last concert as an "unknown" band. Immediately afterwards, they received many invitations for concerts and great recognition, but our friendship remained intact. On Friday, they will be performing for at least two hours as they also celebrate 10 years since their creation. That same evening we will also hear Maja Alvanovic with Majamisty Trio, which is in Bulgaria for the first time. It includes other famous musicians – Lav Kovac and Ervin Malina. The final concert for 2018 will be on November 29. We invited Toby Driver Toby Driver - a multi-instrumentalist from New York, music author, singer, and poet who will present his new album, uniting ghostly stories, surrealism... He is coming here with his formation. Drummer Charlie Schmid of the group will present his new Del Judas program and the genre is Gothic Americana...”

English: Alexander Markov