‘Vrapcheta’, the ‘Little Sparrows’, are vocal and dance-theater ensemble formed by teenagers who meet after school and refine their talents under the guidance of teachers with experience in singing, direction, choreography, and music direction and with the help of stage designers, scene technicians and of the sound engineer and composer Boyko Petkov. On stage, the number of kids varies and peaks in the choral scenes, where thirty ‘Little Sparrows’ perform, singing, playing, and pirouetting in playful movements of dance-theater. Thus they stir the enjoyment not only of their ‘fans’ of the same age, but also of the grown up public. ‘Vrabcheta’ produced many TV music shows, recorded three CD’s and are about to release two more recordings of their shows in Bulgaria. The record is their first work of international importance and it’s the result of a music project that aims to present to an audience much wider than the Bulgarian one the tones and rhythms of the traditional Bulgarian and Macedonian songs. We chose to present a selection of traditional songs from this very rich music folklore, where the kids’ singing is accompanied not only by local instruments, like gadulka (similar to a lute), gajda (bagpipe), but by a range of instruments more similar to the Western tastes, with vocal accompaniments inspired to ‘rap’ rhythms (OHI SHOPE) and hues with touches of Latin and rock sounds (IZGREYALA E’ MESSECINKA; NAZAD, NAZAD MOME KALINO and SEDNALO E GIORE DOS). All that was received with playful enthusiasm by the kids, who in an explosion of improvisations performed the arrangements by Boyko Petkov, who was led in the recording studio by the genial musicality of the ‘Little Sparrows’. In the proposed songs, the expressive variety of the Macedonian lyrics is enriched with the syncopated rhythms of the dance music (horo and racenitza) from the other mountain regions of Bulgaria, where the more often monodic singing is alternated to the more modulated one of two voices , inherited from the polyphonic singing style of the ancient Thracians. Bulgaria has a very ancient music tradition, heir of the mystic ceremonies that the Thracian civilization absorbed from Persian influxes.
