Children Choir "Bodra Smyana"

Boncho Bochev formed Bodra Smyana in the autumn of 1946 and in doing so established children's choral singing in Bulgaria as a serious discipline rather than a school activity. His was the first Bulgarian children's choir to be widely heard abroad; in 1968 it took first prize in London in the BBC's 'Let the Peoples Sing', and it has since made some four dozen international tours. Generations of Bulgarian musicians — singers, conductors, composers — passed through its ranks as children, and so did a good many actors, directors and journalists who never made music professionally afterwards. The choir continues under the National Palace of Children in Sofia. Bizet's 'Carmen' is among the works it has sung in.