Culturama is a festival that has been offering unique encounters with cultures and styles for several years and constantly surprises with the interesting locations of the events. The guest musicians are not only popular, but also unconventional in the ideas and partnerships they are involved in. The next edition of the festival starts on June 13 in the Archaeological Museum in Sofia with a concert of renowned Jordi Savall and his ensemble for historically informed interpretations Hesperion XXI, created more than half a century ago with the aim of performing music from the 10th to the 17th centuries.

The next day, the Bandonegro Orchestra will play in the Crystal Garden in Sofia. On June 15, the "Hilton" hotel will screen the short film "The Book of Flowers" by Agnieszka Polska and in the evening trio Anaê will delight its fans with a concert. The event program also features a concert in Bulgaria Hall on June 21 - Ina Kancheva, Emanuil Ivanov and Simfonietta Vratsa with conductor Hristo Pavlov will celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Maurice Ravel. A day later, the Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet will present new compositions for lyre and piano trio, inspired by Mediterranean music traditions.

On June 25, the Sofia City Art Gallery is hosting a meeting with a new exciting piano duo - Emanuil Ivanov and Tamayo Ikeda, who will perform works by Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Gabriel Fauré, Leopold Godowsky, Fazıl Say and Emanuil Ivanov, united under the motto "Nocturnal Garden". On June 26 in the National Gallery, the "Orient Express" program presents authors from Europe: from Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók and George Enescu to Kurt Weill, Michel Legrand and Mikis Theodorakis.

The festival will end on June 28 with a concert by Simfonietta-Vratsa with conductor Hristo Pavlov. The ensemble continues its collaboration with popular Bulgarian composers in the "BG Music for Trumpets" project. The program includes new works by Angel Zaberski, Georgi Andreev, Milen Kukosharov and Ventsi Mitsov.

"I borrowed the idea for the name from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch," opera singer Ina Kancheva, inspirer and creator of the Cultural Perspectives Foundation and the Culturama Festival in Sofia, shares with the "Culture" portal. "We actually called the edition ‘Garden of Musical Delights’ because each concert is a genre, an experience, pleasure for the soul and for the senses. That's how I thought when creating the overall content, starting from earlier music to Brazilian music, to free improvisation, jazz, folklore, fusion, tango. Of course, we also have quite a few thematic connections to the garden itself. Let's say that this is an allegory that I was looking for, to awaken interest in music, to cultivate a taste for it".

Entrance to all concerts is free for children aged up to 15.

Editor: Tsvetana Toncheva

Publication in English: Alexander Markov

Photos: Facebook /CULTURAMA.Art, inakancheva.com