site.btaUPDATED Bulgarian Choir Leader: Austrians Have Much Admiration for Traditional Bulgarian Music

Among the singers in the Yagoda choir in Vienna are Austrians and they perform traditional Bulgarian music on a par with all Bulgarians. The choir was founded and it led by Bulgarian Yonka Dragomanska. She moved to the Austrian capital in 1999 to study architecture, but has never stopped singing. She was engaged in opera singing, was a performer in classical choirs, worked with famous conductors, participated in musical projects in Vienna.

One day, she had a call from a musician friend who asked her if she would teach folk singing to an Austrian woman who was enchanted by the performances of the Philip Kutev Choir. This is how Yonka met Elizabeth (Lua), the first member of the future Yagoda [Strawberry] choir. It was named after her grandmother - a folk singer who ignited in her the love of music from the cradle. Lua put advertisements for the choir across Vienna and the result was that over 30 people showed up for the first workshop. “I could not believe my eyes. That is how Yagoda came about.”

"The truth is that folk music is Bulgaria for me. My childhood was imbued with folk music at home. It is the connection and the love and the respect for my past, the respect for it and the gratitude for everything I have received from Bulgaria, because I will never stop loving it," Dragomanska told BTA.

Her grandmother was a folk singer. “I remember her singing all the time: while she was cleaning the house, cooking, working the garden. They invited her to do recordings for the National Radio together with [renowned folk singer] Nadka Karadjova but my grandfather would not let her. Her told her all singers were trollops. So, she stayed a housewife but her sweet voice penetrated each pore of my skin. I remember that I loved sitting on a chair under the pear tree in the backyard and singing tunes that I had made up by myself.”

Another person who influenced her as a folk singer was Maria Topeva, a Pazardjik-based singer of traditional songs, who sang in the Filip Koutev choir and then moved to Vienna. “She taught me the Pazardjik technique of singing. I will be forever thankful to her. If only you could see what happened with people as they heard her sing! I think there was a direct connection with God. That is why I decided that I did not want to do anything else but sing.”

Dragomanska said that studying opera singing was another major factor that shaped her as a musician.

As were the music duo Wlagigueroff brothers, Alexander and Konsatntin, with whom she started her first steps as a musician in Vienna.

Now her singing teacher is Stefanie Houtzel.

Three Bulgarian women, people from Mexico, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Lebanon, now sing in her choir.

“I believe that Austrians have much admiration for Bulgarian folk music, every time they hear it, because it is otherworldly. One is swept off their feet, especially by the women’s choirs,” Dragomanska said.

During choir practices, the first hour is spent for vocal technique and singing. I teach singing: from operatic to traditional, because we do traditional songs from around the world. I have learnt to have well-structured classes. I have much empathy for people. I help them open up and believe in themselves. I am careful with what I say because everybody is like a little child, especially when they learn something new. And these are people who have only just begun to learn to sing. Many have also started coming for private lessons. I want to give to the others what I have learned – and to connect them in one whole, as if it were one person. Then the feeling is amazing. I believe that is when choir singing becomes real art and this is the hardest thing to achieve. Then the second hour we work on the repertoire and practice by choir divisions, followed by practicing all together. We have a short break between the first and second hour. After the practice we go for a drink somewhere.”

The choir meets for practice in a museum. “It is a gorgeous Baroque house with a courtyard, vines and very cozy atmosphere in the centre of Vienna,” said the choir leader.

The choir’s first public appearance was at an exhibition from Bosnia - about the war - right there in the museum. “The second one was in the studio of a sculptor and a man of art, quite notorious in the art circles - Georgi Okropiridze. He is a Georgian man who has been living in Austria since his youth. The room was not so big, and so many people came! That was a unique experience! Then we sang outside in the middle of falling snowflakes. The kindest compliment after the concert came from a Frenchman who said to me, ‘It's been a long time since I cried as a man, tonight you made me cry.’ In the near future, we have been invited to sing in a theatre production. I think doors are slowly opening for us and the Yagoda Choir. I am extremely happy!”

Dragomanska's other talent is drawing. “As a teenager I drew all the time and everywhere. My mother didn't want me to become a musician because ‘music doesn’t feed you’. She tried to keep me away from music and encouraged me to paint and develop in fine art. In Bulgaria, I was admitted to study industrial design at the Southwest University in Blagoevgrad. There I met an artist to whom I am grateful for giving me a hand to come here to Vienna and apply to study art. It was 1999 when I first came to Vienna. I also met the father of my child, Radoslav, whom I later married. I studied architecture for three years, but I never stopped singing. That is, until music began to enter my life more and more. It was as if what an old lady had predicted, that I would become a singer abroad, started to turn into reality.”

Dragomanska believes that one day she will come back and work in Bulgaria. ”I love my homeland. I believe one can see a picture of its entirety when one they leave it," she told BTA.