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| AUBG Choir places second in international festival |
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| Written by Ralica Ninova | |||
 Photos by Edi Pihoni The AUBG Choir placed second in a competition against 22 choirs from the region in the first Antaliya International Choir Festival, which was held on Nov. 4-8 in Turkey. The contest was divided in two parts: an official performance where choirs sang three songs and were judged by the jury, and an unofficial performance, a concert rather than a competition, which the jury was not to take into consideration. "The majority of the audience stood on their feet, and started dancing, clapping, and singing with us," professor and participant Sabina Wien described the second performance. "I think had the jury been there, we would have won the first place." The AUBG Choir won the silver plate at the competition. The first place was shared by a choir from Lithuania and a children's choir from Antaliya. "We felt that the jury was a little bit biased," Wien said. As a sign of their "protest to unfairness," the choir chose to sing a song that stressed on the importance of the joy from singing which is greater than the importance of winning a contest. "Unfortunately, such things happen," professor and choirmaster Hristo Krotev said. However, it is preferable to win a prize because we have sung well, rather than because the jury has favored us, being thus unfair to other participants, Krotev added. The choir ran into some difficulties during the trip to Antaliya and almost lost one of its singers along the way. AUBG collaborated with the Turkish consulate in Sofia in order to make sure that all the students from different nationalities get visas at the border. However, it turned out that Elena, a Moldovan student at the South West University, had gotten the visa by mistake and was sent back over the border in the middle of the night. She had to go to Plovdiv, then Sofia in order to finally get a proper visa. She then took another bus to Istanbul and a flight to Antalya in order to make it to the competition. All of the choir members contributed money to compensate for the extra costs, Wien said. "Choral art is a collective one," Krotev said. The university paid for the choir's transportation, which lasted over 24 hours by bus, but each of the students had to pay 150 euro for the participation fee and accommodation, Wien said. The entire experience was filmed by a journalist and an operator that accompanied the choir and put together a documentary film. It was aired on the local Pirin TV channel on Friday, Nov. 20. It will also be used for promotional purposes by the university. The choir plans to hold performances in Blagoevgrad and Sofia in April next year.
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Comments
That was so cool:)))