MAGIC VIEW is a project of two musicians who share a soft spot for world and ethnic music. Nikolai Ivanov from OM has for the last twenty years been experimenting with music themes from the East mixing them with Bulgarian folklore. A visual artist by training he has skillfully combined in his compositions piano with guitar, vocals and flute. Besides he has written the soundtracks to a few films. He uses some of this stuff for his latest project.  

Petar Yordanov-Bunny is known as member of Oratnitsa band with whom he has been on tour across Europe and Asia. He plays a range of percussions including traditional Bulgarian drums, cajon, hang drum, djembe, tarabuka etc. He recreates themes from folklore in a modern and accessible way. In the recent years Bunny has made a name as one of Bulgaria's most creative young percussionists. In this way the music that Nikolai Ivanov and Petar Yordanov create together comes across with a synthesis of diverse styles and highlights sound vibration.  

„For the first time I and Bunny shared a stage experience last year”, Nikolai Ivanov says. “I invited him to replace a colleague of mine for a concert. I liked his work and personality. So I talked to him about the Magic View project including Austrian vanguard artist Josef Trattner.  He travels across the world with a sofa inviting various creatives to sit and talk to him. He has called this European Sofa Journeys. So I and Bunny came across this sofa. We started playing instruments and decided we could do something together, as a duo. It took a short time to achieve a symbiosis and it became the basis of the Magic View project. We create a very rich sound, and we are just two. This has become possible because we both use various instruments - percussions, piano, guitar and vocals. We have achieved an amazing sound as a duo and we try to get better with every concert”.  

More from Nikolai Ivanov about Magic View, his joint project with Petar Yordanov-Bunny: 

„Our program offers a diversity of styles. I think we have to be flexible responding to feedback from the audience. People find it increasingly difficult to keep their attention focused and to contemplate art. They are after things diverse and easy to digest. So we have to respond to the needs of the audience. Our pieces have distinct themes and internal logic. Between themes we do improvise - depending though on the place and the type of audience. When we play in a club we have to adapt to the mood. When we perform in a hall the audience is very much focused on every sound, so we have to achieve a kind of music meditation”.  

Magic View was premiered last November, in Ruse. Currently the two musicians are having their first tour including Ruse, Plovdiv, Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo, Varna and Kavarna. Nikolai and Petar plan to release a CD. Besides, the plan to present the project in other countries of Europe. Nikolai Ivanov wants to keep the project open with various guest musicians joining in.  

English Daniela Konstantinova 

The audio contains the following tracks: 

1.  Theme in 7 by Nikolai Ivanov, music to a documentary about poet Nikola Vaptsarov

2.  Film music by Nikolai Ivanov, from Journey to Afghanistan

3.  Mari Mariiko, Oratnitsa band