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Folk singer Ventsislav Penev to release new album

БНР Новини
Photo: archive

Young folk singer Ventsislav Penev took up singing in earnest in 2004. The first person to tutor and inspire him was Kostadin Gougov; to this day he sings songs from the repertoire of the renowned singer. Some of them have found their way into the new album Ventsislav is working on, along with five recordings he made for the Bulgarian National Radio with the BNR folk music orchestra.



“I come from Novi Iskar (a town close to Sofia) but the songs I sing are not the songs typical of this folklore region”,
the young singer says. “My choice fell on the folklore of the Pirin region and the songs sung by Nikola Badev, Vaska Ilieva, Petranka Kostadinova from neighbouring Macedonia. But there is one thing I should like to stress – that the only person I have learnt the trade from is the unforgettable Kostadin Gougov. We met more than ten years ago and at that first meeting we sang More Sokol Pie together (Falcon drinking water). He was surprised to find my voice so well suited to the songs from his own repertoire that he recommended me to the producers at the BNR. I can say that these first recordings marked the beginning of my professional career. My tutor always insisted on keeping the lyrics unaltered and singing in the local dialect. He would say that the young must make a name for themselves by performing unpopular songs on stage. I am grateful to him for everything. Some time ago I recorded a song called Remembering Gougov, the music and lyrics were written by Annie Momchilova and the arrangement is by Sashko Velkov from Macedonia. In my first album I included two of his most popular songs.

The new collection of songs Ventsislav will be presenting is almost ready. Along with the other recordings it features songs he has himself composed in the folklore style he loves best. The photographs for the album’s sleeve were made at the museum house of Vele Mitrov (he was an associate of revolutionary Vassil Levski) in one of Sofia’s suburbs. It was there that in 1871, Vassil Levski founded a secret revolutionary committee.

“The photos were made by a young and ambitious photographer – Georgi Alexiev”, Ventsislav says. “The house is more than 200 years old. During the shoot I had the feeling that I was being revisited by the spirit of the past, that I was going back I time. I think the photographs Georgi gave me for my new album turned out really well. I can’t wait for it to be released."

English version: Milena Daynova



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