site.btaBulgarian Embassy in Bern Hosts Concert Marking 80th Anniversary of Rescue of Bulgarian Jews

The Bulgarian Embassy in Bern, Switzerland hosted a concert on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during World War II, Lyudmila Martaler Slavova told BTA on Tuesday. Slavova is host and producer of the Bulgarian Hour programme on Radio Bern.

The concert programme included works by Pancho Vladigerov, Georgi Cherkin, John Williams, Alexis Weissenberg and Dmitry Shostakovich.

The pieces were performed by well-known Bulgarians living in Switzerland: violinist Dima Dimitrova, second concertmaster of the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Teodora Dimitrova, also a violinist who plays in the symphony orchestras of Bern, St. Gallen and Basel, and pianist Elitsa Riva, who works in performance and composition. Her latest project, Oblivion, is a collaboration with Bulgarian visual artist Albena Mihailova-Benji and composer Vladimir Djambazov.

Ambassador Radi Naydenov gave a speech in which he told the story of the Jews in Bulgaria. An exhibition of documents illustrating the settlement and life of the Jews in Bulgaria was also displayed during the event.