“We have been playing with Silhouettes for over four years. We started out as a trio with Gabriela Tsvetkova, cello and Lilia Zhekova, piano and were later joined by Christian Kaloyanov, clarinet,” Kalina Miteva violinist of Silhouettes says. “We called ourselves Silhouettes in 2012 when we went to Austria for a master class and we had to choose a name for ourselves. The name comes from a work by renowned Bulgarian composer and conductor Vassil Kazandjiev – he has a piece for cello and piano that is called Silhouettes. We picked it because it seemed to suit our ensemble very well; after all we offer an unusual combination of instruments: violin, cello, clarinet and piano. We play as a quartet but also as a trio and sonata duos; in concert we also perform as soloists. The idea we want to convey to the audience is that the ensemble has many silhouettes – four people who form different instrumental groups. This spring we shall have two concerts from the Contrasts cycle, based on this same idea. The first is on 9 March and the second on 12 April at the Bulgaria chamber hall.

The ensemble is especially partial to works by prominent Bulgarian composers like Pancho Vladigerov and Marin Goleminov. The young performers studied chamber music with Prof. Ventseslav Nikolov. Together with their professor they have played in Studio No. 1 of the Bulgarian National Radio and elsewhere. Thanks to Ventseslav Nikolov the Silhouettes’ repertoire features a great many works by 20^th century composers. One of their latest recordings is of contemporary music.

“We are very much interested in this kind of music,” says Kalina Miteva. “The Hindemith quartet was written specifically for a formation like ours, and there aren’t many such quartets around. My colleagues and I are very happy to have been able to make the recording at the Bulgarian National Radio’s Studio No. 1. Dmitri Shostakovich composed the original Prelude and Fugue No. 5 for piano which was arranged by our clarinet player Christian Kaloyanov.”

After graduating the Pancho Vladigerov National Music Academy, the members of Silhouettes continued at the Academy – Kalina Miteva is doing her Master’s in violin, Christian Kaloyanov – a PhD while Lilia Zhekova and Gabriela Tsvetkova are specializing chamber music. How do the four see the future of their formation? 

“We want to continue to play together, to preserve and develop what we have discovered together in terms of friendship and sharing music," Kalina Miteva explains. "Our aim is to popularize chamber music in Bulgaria. But we also plan to travel. Every summer for the past three years we have been to different festivals and master classes, we are still learning.”

The audio features the following works:

-  Part 4 of Sonata for two cellos and piano No. 8 by George Friedrich Handel;

-  Fragment from part one of Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano by Paul Hindemith;

-  Prelude and Fugue No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

English version: Milena Daynova