Unique orchestra opens March Music Days International Festival in Ruse

The 65th edition of the March Music Days International Festival in Ruse will start on March 13. For decades, one of the most prestigious events in Bulgaria’s cultural calendar has delighted both residents and visitors to the picturesque Danube city, often called “Little Vienna” because of its magnificent architecture. This year’s festival program is once again rich and varied.

The audience eagerly anticipates performances by leading soloists and ensembles from Bulgaria and abroad, including the Romanian National Orchestra and the Sofia Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Signum Saxophone Quartet, and the renowned vocal ensemble VOCES8 Scholars. The festival will open with a performance by the Ruse Festival Orchestra, which this year includes 80 musicians from 19 countries – students of the National School of Arts “Prof. Veselin Stoyanov” in Ruse.  

In a special interview with Radio Bulgaria, Maria Dukanova – a musicologist and long-time lecturer at the National School of Arts “Prof. Veselin Stoyanov” – tells the story of the remarkable ensemble known officially as the Ruse Festival Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 2010 with the aim of bringing together, just once, students from different graduating classes of the music school from around the world to mark its 50th anniversary.

“The idea was mine, and it took us at least two years of preparation to find all our alumni across the globe. At the request of the orchestra members themselves, we held its next edition in 2015, for the school’s 55th anniversary”, Maria Dukanova said.

Since 2017, the Ruse Festival Orchestra has participated in every edition of the March Music Days International Festival. The concerts have featured prominent alumni of the National School of Arts “Prof. Veselin Stoyanov” in Ruse: pianist Evgeni Bozhanov, violinist Svetlin Roussev, soprano Krasimira Stoyanova, and the world-famous piano duo Lyuben Dimitrov and Aglika Genova.

“We created a catalog of all the graduates by specialty, tracked them down, found their emails, and wrote to them. The confirmations started coming in almost immediately. Our former students wrote that it was a wonderful idea and that they would definitely come to perform together on one stage”, said Maria Dukanova. 

The first lineup of the Ruse Festival Orchestra included alumni of the National School of Arts “Prof. Veselin Stoyanov” from across Bulgaria and from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Canary Islands, Egypt, Argentina, and the USA. A permanent member of the orchestra is Tsvetelina Krasteva, concertmaster of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra.

Bassoonist Lyubo Minkov from the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and Svetlin Doichinov, principal oboe of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, also take part at every performance of the Ruse Festival Orchestra. Maria Dukanova emphasizes that many of the musicians who embraced the idea have built successful careers abroad. She gives as examples the regular guests from Türkiye: violist Nesrin Bayramoğulları, who works in Izmir, and oboist Bayram Bayramoğulları. “But the largest number of participants are from Germany”, said Ms. Dukanova.

“There is something in the air of Ruse, or in the school itself, that really gave them their first steps towards success. In two editions, none of them asked for any payment at all, including the soloists and the conductor. There is a certain emotion. That emotion, which distinguishes the orchestra from the rest, can even be felt during the concert – between the stage and the audience. The atmosphere in the hall is simply different when this orchestra plays”, says Maria Dukanova.

This orchestra – created to sustain and express the truly deep and lasting ties between different generations of musicians from around the world who began their professional careers in Ruse – truly has no equivalent.

“I don’t think it will sound proud or boastful – for Bulgaria, it’s clear that there is no equivalent, and I believe there are almost none anywhere else in the world. There are thousands of festival orchestras, but they are usually temporary, created for a specific edition of a festival. An orchestra that is made up of 90% of alumni from the same school each time, and has already existed for 16 years – that’s not just a fact, it’s a lasting project. And this is thanks to all the participants. Hundreds of students from the school have passed through it over these 16 years, mostly under Maestro Tabakov, who creates an exceptional atmosphere of friendship and excellent work”, said Maria Dukanova. 

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov