site.btaApollonia Festival Orchestra Premieres in Sozopol

Addressing the audience in Sozopol’s amphitheatre on Monday evening, Apollonia Art Foundation director Margarita Dimitrova said that what follows is a unique and unprecedented concert in the forty-year history of the festival.

“Last year some of these people were here and then we decided to do something unusual. I suggested we do a show by concert masters,” Dimitrova said, adding that the musicians in the orchestra have come together from all over Bulgaria and the world. She noted that the idea was welcomed very warmly by everyone.

Earlier, Minister of Culture Nayden Todorov presented Dimitrova with a Golden Century necklace, the highest award of the Ministry of Culture.

On stage at the Apollonia Amphitheatre were Albena Danailova (violin - concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic), Svetlin Roussev (violin - concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Romance Switzerland, of the Seoul Philharmonic (2007/2015) and of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France (2005/2017), Liya Petrova (violin soloist of the most famous orchestras, laureate of the most prestigious festivals), Nikolai Minchev (violin concertmaster of the Wuppertal Opera Symphony Orchestra), Stoimen Peev (violin concertmaster of the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble), Valya Dervenska (violin concertmaster of the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra), Kalina Hristova (violin - concertmaster of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra), Galina Koycheva (violin - concertmaster of the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra), Rumen Tsvetkov (viola - prominent soloist and director of the Mercy Art Festival, Madrid), Stefania Yankova (viola - principal viola of the Bulgarian National Radio's SO), Alexander Somov (cello - concertmaster of the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra), Ivan Lalev (cello - concertmaster of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra) and Dimitar Ivanov (double bass - concertmaster of the Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra).

The concert included works by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Pancho Vladigerov.

In the end, Happy Birthday sounded in an arrangement by Hristo Yotsov, and the audience in the amphitheatre sang together with the musicians "Happy Birthday, Apollonia".