Prof. Hristo Yotsov was among the first, if not the first, leader of a music association to make an emotional address to his colleagues and to assure them that the Bulgarian Music Association /BMA/ - the organization established in 2012 that he chairs would fight for the rights of freelance musicians after the "freezing" of cultural life for an indefinite period. As a lecturer at the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in Sofia, he himself has a stable income, but this does not apply to the colleagues he works with in his active work as a freelance musician.

“At the moment, it is particularly important to show that we are not sitting idle and the musicians can be calm because there is someone to protect them in this devastating situation”, Prof. Yotsov explains. “Everybody suffers losses, but those of us who are not in permanent employment contracts but are self-insured are literally perishing. For two weeks now, the Bulgarian Musical Association has been at the centre of talks that are being held with Bulgaria’s Minister of Culture Boil Banov through a specially created Initiative Committee. We try to unite all our interests, suggestions, specialized opinions because the members of the BMA are quite versatile - from companies that organize music events to individual musicians who plan their performances on their own.”

Let us recall that on March 26, 2020 the European Parliament endorsed three emergency proposals at an extraordinary plenary session as part of a joint EU response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is planned to divert EUR 37 billion from available EU funds to the citizens, regions and countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. What about the situation in Bulgaria? Prof. Hristo Yotsov tells us more:

“The European program offers serious resources that need to reach the sectors affected in each country. On March 31, the second meeting of the Initiative Committee and the Minister was held. I allowed myself to strongly state that it was the Ministry of Culture and the Minister himself who must fight for this money. It is in their hands to create such an organization of the activities which would make this aid effective. Such structural funds have long existed in Europe, creating coordination and security for the independent cultural sector. Regarding the public sector things are clear - they rely on the state budget there. Self-employed artists usually remain out of sight, but this is by no means a "marginal work" in terms of the creative potential that lies behind the words "freelance artists". The current financial measures are "emergency aid", they come from restructured European funds, and it is clear to everyone that if culture collapses now and we have to rebuild ... No one even wants to think about it ... Our only purpose at the moment is to have security that, when the crisis is over, we will be able to plan all concerts, projects, and others that have now been cancelled. And that depends on the management of the funds in question. Austria has allocated € 1 billion to this category of people. Each of them will receive an amount of between 3,000 and 5,000 Euros free of charge, and in Bulgaria we are talking about an interest-free loan to the tune of 1000 BGN... There is no need to delude ourselves - this will not be the last virus or cataclysm that will afflict us. I very much hope that one of the positive effects of the situation will be to create such a structural fund that guarantees the existence of self-employed artists. And to end with a positive piece of news - since February, the BMA has been a member of the European Music Council, which is the "music parliament" of Europe, and we represent Bulgaria in it - a responsible and important position."

Saxophonist Vladimir Karparov has been a freelance artist in Germany for decades. What is the situation there for self-employed musicians in the country where the state of emergency started on March 23?

"Days earlier, police were going round the clubs and in a very friendly manner, urged people to leave to stop the rapid spread of the virus”, Vladimir Karparov explains. “Since then, all of us freelance musicians have been unemployed. The first petitions came out immediately. Within a week, the Ministers of Culture and Finance responded and it became clear that there would be aid for those like me, for club owners (for whom it was most sinister) and for all self-insured citizens, all small business people. They have made the application process quite simple, you can fill in the application for aid very easily and submit it online. One bank took over the function of distributing these funds. One package is EUR 5,000 for a period of three months. Hopefully everything is soon over, but if the state of emergency continues, we can count on help again. You are not required to prove what income you had or which of your gigs were cancelled. I immediately shared what was being done here with my musician friends in Bulgaria so they could contact the copyright and performing rights agencies. In Germany, they were the first to grant aid. The agency for performing rights gave everyone who was registered and received remuneration from it the sum of 250 euros. And the copyright organization has given the amounts calculated on the basis of the payments made in the past years and will deduct these sums in 2022 from future payments."

On April 2, the chairpersons of all artists’ unions in Bulgaria sent an open letter to state institutions, demanding an increase in the culture-related funds in the state budget, with the aim of taking urgent measures to support artists and cultural organizations.

Photos: private library and Peter Gaenssle