2017 was a special year for the celebrated singer from the Strandja region Georgi Germanov – he turned 75. A good occasion to take a look at the significant contribution he has made to Bulgarian folk songs and celebrate his lyrical, velvet voice and the deep emotion it conveys.

His initiation into music followed different roads. It started out from the town where he was born– Obzor near Varna - and where he grew up in a family of Thracian refugees from Asia Minor. As he was growing up, he listened to the songs his mother sang, and the tunes his father played on the rebeck, and that shaped his lifelong love of folk music. As a musician, he has sung in a choir and as soloist of the Varna ensemble. And he started exploring other genres – like urban folklore, for example. Georgi Germanov made a childhood dream of his come true – to play the accordion, something that has proved to be a great help to him in his future work as leader of the singer groups from the Thracian Association in Varna and the surrounding villages. It is important to folk singers to perform to live audiences – it boosts their popularity but also affords them an opportunity to enrich their repertoire, by adding songs given them by fans.

For the Bulgarian National Radio music fund, Georgi Germanov has recorded original Strrandja songs he has himself searched for and found.

Georgi Germanov takes a walk down memory lane:“I should be thanking God for the gift of singing. I grew up in a family of musicians, my parents and the other villagers have taught me everything there is to know. There were a lot of refugees from Strandja and Asia Minor in Obzor and they sang the songs of Strandja. My talent was noticed and I was given songs I still perform, to this very day. Up until 1964 I was an amateur and then continued as a professional musician after I was invited to join a concert group. I worked for Balkantourist (the state-run tourist organization in those days), we would be part of the welcoming committee for state delegations – alongside the Kushlevi sisters, Georgi Chilingirov, Sonya Kuncheva. I was a member of the ritual orchestra of Varna city hall – I was soloist and played the accordion and the pandore. I have so many memories. Besides songs from Strandja, I also sing what are known as “fun fair songs”, which tell real-life stories. Once, at a concert, a man from the audience called out: I want you to make me cry and then make me laugh.