Danube Sounds Choir

Founded in 1936, the Danube Sounds choir belongs to a choral inheritance that at the middle of the twentieth century supported twenty-eight choirs in Ruse. It works in the concert repertory rather than the opera house: the cantata and oratorio literature - Beethoven, Verdi, Rossini, Prokofiev, Carl Orff, Haydn, Berlioz, Pergolesi, Dvorak, Petridis, Ramirez - the choruses of Aida, Ernani, La traviata, Carmen, Boris Godunov, Prince Igor, La sonnambula, La rondine, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lohengrin and Tannhauser, and dozens of a cappella pieces from the Orthodox and Bulgarian choral classics, Vladigerov among them. It holds the order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the highest Bulgarian state decoration, and first prizes from national and international festivals, and it has toured widely in Europe and Asia. Ana Tomowa-Sintow, Alexandrina Milcheva, Valeri Popova, Alexandrina Pendachanska, Mirella Freni, Katia Ricciarelli, Fiorenza Cossotto, Giuseppe Morino and Enrique Viana have sung with it, and it has worked under Riccardo Muti, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Heinz Rogner, Nino Bonavolonta, Roy Bohana, Steven Mercurio, Reynald Giovaninetti, Hans Zimmer, Gurer Aykal, Emmanuel Plasson, Mark Kadin, Iosif Conta and Byron Fidetzis. Recordings survive in France, England and Greece and in the golden funds of Bulgarian National Radio and Television. Nayden Todorov was its artistic director during his years in Ruse.