January 24, 2006
The haunting and wonderful women’s choir
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares makes its Santa Barbara debut
at UCSB Campbell Hall
Summary Facts:
- Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares
- The breathtaking, Grammy-winning 22-member Bulgarian National Radio and Television Chorus
- One of the world’s greatest women’s choirs
- Monday, March 6 / 8 pm
- UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $38 / UCSB students: $17
- Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535
The 22-member Bulgarian State National Radio and Television Chorus—known as Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares—one of the premier women’s choirs worldwide, will make its Santa Barbara debut on Monday, March 6 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. Known for dramatic adaptations of folk singing styles and spine-chilling harmonies, punctuated by whoops and quavers, the Grammy-winning choir, a huge success on the world music charts, will perform at Disney Hall two nights after this Santa Barbara concert. Since becoming a sensation with its first release in the West in 1987, the group has collaborated with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Tuvan throat singers. “The staggering vocalists supply soul-shaking moments,” raves Billboard while the LA Weekly called a concert “the hippest show on earth...the varied textures of their voices leave the listener breathless.”
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares is an ensemble showcasing a rare artistic gift and enormous popular appeal. Created fifty years ago, its goal was to enrich the heritage of the Bulgarian solo folk song with harmonies and arrangements that highlighted its beautiful timbres and irregular rhythms. The magnificent singers transform sounds into strange vocal colors as if something other than the human voice, perhaps some strange instrument, is playing. They jubilate, shout, ornament, form fast and perfect glissandos, let one crazy rhythm follow another and make their voices build the most daring chords. And suddenly the folk cliché does not apply any more. Their sound has led listeners to claim to have heard “an archaic world of sounds from times long ago” or “the marriage of the avant-grade and the middle ages.” With their bell-like voices that seam to float lightly through space, these women have become international stars, whose hypnotic chant circles the globe.
These mystic voices have managed countless times to dissolve the separation between East and West, of young and old, of pop music and classical tunes. The world became aware of their art thanks to Marcel Cellier, a Swiss producer, who started releasing albums under the name Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares in 1975. In 1990 the second volume from the group won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording. The album Rituals, released by Electra Nonesuch in the USA, was also nominated for a Grammy in 1994. Once the public got its CDs the popularity of the choir rose worldwide, leading to intensive concert tours as the choir’s performances were hosted in all the major halls in Europe, America and Asia.
In an interview in The Rough Guide to World Music, Dora Hristova, longtime leader of Les Mysteres, claims, “It is impossible to train somebody to sing like this. These women are born with this ability. We have worked with a group of American women who love Bulgarian music and have formed a choir specially to sing it. Of course they are good, but it is an imitation. Secondly, this technique is very harmful to the vocal chords. If you are not born with the right physiology you can easily damage your vocal chords because the tension of the air passing through them is so great to make the sound so piercing and strong.”
“The vocal technique was once widespread in Europe, but the historical circumstances meant that it was only preserved in Bulgaria. With five hundred years of Ottoman oppression we had no real contact with European vocal culture while they developed a bel canto vocal style. In European bel canto resonance is in the head and chest while in Bulgarian singing the resonance is always in the chest, never in the head. That’s why the vocal range is restricted—only an octave.”
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares are presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Franciscan Inn. Tickets are $38 for the general public and $17 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and the evening of the show. Ticket prices are subject to convenience fees. Tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased at the door, if still available.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.