“Agitatois a festival fully dedicated to chamber music", explains Nona Krastnikova, initiator and chief organizer of the event. “Together with Mariya Ruseva we decided to start a festival that would agitate the music scene. We have talked to many people and most of them agree that the same names are on most of the playbills of music festivals in Sofia. We all love them, but we also need something new, a gulp of fresh air. Our goal is to invite ensembles presenting wide-ranging styles and combinations of timbres. We prefer to have at least one Bulgarian in every formation – someone who lives and works abroad but feels the need to perform to Bulgarian audiences.”

Nona Krastnikova is an opera singer, member of the Burgas Opera House company. The soprano’s repertoire features more than 10 leads in operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and others. She lectures at Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia and over the last six years has teamed up with pianist Mariya Ruseva in Duo Collage. Nona explains that the third edition of the Agitato festival has been the most impressive so far thanks to support from the Municipality of Sofia. It has been very successful too, because of the presence of world acclaimed musicians and ensembles.

“The festival opened with the appearance of the musicians from Silhouettes Chamber Orchestra. This was followed by a concert of Crush, an ensemble for new music. The musicians premiered works by Florian Hartlieb (Germany), Bojidar Spassov and Peter Kerkelov, both from Bulgaria. The atmosphere was incredible and the audience was happy to attend an exciting concert for new music. We have for some time been thinking of forming duos of young singers and pianists who could get into chamber music. The idea was implemented via the AgitatoYouth project. The participants are from Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia, the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv, as well as high school students. For a relatively short time they memorized songs by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert and Schumann and presented them during one of the festival’s concerts. The project continues and is run jointly by me and Mariya Ruseva. Later we shall select the best among the young performers and will organize master classes for the duos. I am happy that we discovered many pianists willing to work in the field of vocal music. From among the Bulgarian concerts at Agitato, I should like to single out the Solid Brass quintet. They performed classical works but there were also jazz improvisations. Another concert to remember was the appearance of Metis String Quartet, our guests from Lithuania. These four young men apart from working at the opera and philharmonic orchestra in Vilnius have been touring the world with remarkable success. On 28 Nov. we were happy to organize the concert The Silhouette of a Love Affair of ACordBass Trio. George Vassilev (guitar), Irina-Kalina Goudeva (double bass) and Stéphane Chapuis (bandonéon) presented a program based on poetry by Blaga Dimitrova, Valeri Petrov and Bogomil Goudev. The music was bordering on classics, jazz and contemporary music.”

The closing concert of Agitato Festival on 29 Nov. features Atanassov Trio. The trio based in France has prepared works by Brahms and Schubert. The only Bulgarian in the band, pianist Pierre-Kaloyann Atanassov, has been playing the piano, as well as violin since age 3. At 16, he started his career in chamber music jointly with acclaimed Bulgarian violinist Svetlin Roussev. Atanassov started the trio in 2007 teaming up with Perceval Gilles (violin) and Sarah Sultan(cello).

Today the trio is one of the leading chamber music ensembles in Europe and has given concerts in France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Finland, Spain and elsewhere. Precision, sophistication and depth – this is how reviews most often describe the rendition of Atanassov Trio.

English Daniela Konstantinova