Commissions and Premieres
“One of the great joys of our festival is the collaborations with living composers. The first work we performed when we began our adventure in Kovachevitsa was Rhodopa by Dobrinka Tabakova. We have collaborated with Dobrinka ever since and performed the Bulgarian premieres of chamber works by a few other living composers, including Amanda Harberg and Jesse Montgomery (both from the USA). In 2023, we made our first commission – the piano quintet Stone Trail by Tabakova, which received its world premiere at our festival. In 2024, we tripled our efforts and premiered three more works by the Bulgarian composers Peter Kerkelov, Lora Al-Ahmad, and Svetlin Hristov. We look forward to continuing these collaborations in the future, as they have become an essential part of our festival. “
- Lora Tchekoratova
Dobrinka Tabakova
– Stone Trail for Piano Quintet (2023)
The inspiration for this work is the exquisite mosaics in the Episcopal Basilica of my hometown- Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The two floors of geometric figures, birds, and images encoded with ancient symbolism opened up a whole world for me to explore as I prepared to write this work.
Fundamental materials and elements have inspired many of my works - from water (rivers, seas) to metal, wood, and now stone. This primal essence is carried over into the structure of the four abridged movements of the piano quintet, where the durability of the stone and its ability to carry messages through the ages define the form of the work. The first movement - Carved in Time – chimes with joyful and unrelenting energy, like resonant bells or a clock whose hands carve out messages with each passing second. This almost physical allegory of shaping the stone is reversed in the second part - Trail. Here, the regularity of the tempo and register melt away, unfolding in waves of unpredictable yet sometimes familiar themes. There are also glimpses of previously heard chords, but here, they are presented in the context of organic material – musical themes that mimic birdsong or sounds inspired by nature. An expressive chorale creates a bridge to the final movement- Tesserae/Carved in Stone. A theme in irregular and unpredictable time signatures unfolds gently and leads to the final coda, which weaves and reimagines the main themes of the work. The symbolism and meaning of numbers form a significant part of the construction of the material of this quintet - the ancient mosaics are rich in this secret language, and I am grateful to my parents, especially my father’s research on this topic, which ignited my curiosity and became an essential part of the composing process.
- Dobrinka Tabakova
Peter Kerkelov
– … then space began to toll … melodies and vibrations for Chamber Ensemble and Electronics (2024)
I live here and now, but my earthly steps fall in the footsteps of millions of departed souls who once lived here. A footstep is a mark of movement in space, but also a contact point between the human body and the planet.
I don't know if it was delirium or inspiration in the maddening heat of the Kovachevitsa summer, but I felt with my feet the melodies of those who inhabited this space before us. They appeared before me like pieces of a broken mirror – containing and, at the same time, concealing parts of the past. The parts concealed – shrouded in mystery, obscure, unfamiliar, forever lost – dissolved to manifest in a work of unlived memory – the vibrations of unfinished songs. I share these overheard luminous songs drawn from the dark blue of oblivion.
Pacing over the pulsating Kovachevitsa earth, a tuning fork of non-existent voices, I remembered a verse by Emily Dickinson – ...then space began to toll... And indeed, the space around me began to toll. And now it's your turn to vibrate with it. I dedicate this piece to my companion in life, Anatolie.
-Peter Kerkelov
Lora Al–Ahmad
– Dosta: Bound for the Celestial for Piano Quintet (2024)
Lora Al-Ahmad's piano quintet Dosta: Bound for the Celestial traces the dramatic fate of Dosta, a young woman from Kovachevitsa who was mercilessly murdered in the first half of the 20th century. It is inspired by the oral history Al-Ahmad collected in Kovachevitsa in 2023 and by the book House Beyond the World by Bulgarian writer Georgi Danailov, who settled in Kovachevitsa.
Several themes intertwine: the protagonist’s spirituality—honest and loyal, clever and beautiful—the inexorability of her fate, and the mysterious power of a mother's curse. The characters exist at a crossroads between myth and reality.
The special effects of the piano, string instruments, and wind chimes convey the atmosphere of the past. Dosta is more than a particular young woman with a sad fate. She embodies the history, spirit, and magic of the Western Rhodopes of the first half of the 20th century, but many contemporary women are likely to hear echoes of their own lives in her story.
-Lora Al-Ahmad
Svetlin Hristov
– Upon the Path of Dreams – Songs for Mezzo-Soprano, Clarinet and Piano Trio on texts by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (2024)
Upon the Path of Dreams is inspired by six poems by the Japanese poets Ono no Komachi (825-900) and Izumi Shikibu (976-1030). The poems interweave the themes of love, philosophy, religion, and suffering—whole worlds of feeling gathered into a few short phrases. The work conveys Komachi and Shikibu's emotions with modern compositional techniques and motifs from Japanese and Bulgarian folklore.
- Svetlin Hristov
Stone Trail was commissioned with funding from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation.
Dosta: Bound for the Celestial, … when space began to toll … and Upon the Path of Dreams were commissioned with funding from MusicAIRE and National Culture Fund, Bulgaria.
