Founded less than five years ago (September 1974), the "Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble is composed of young vocalists, instrumentalists and dancers, most of whom are graduates from different musical, folklore and choreographical schools throughout the land. At the moment many of them are students at the Higher Musical and Pedagogical Institute in the town of Plovdiv.
The aim and ambition of the ensemble is to preserve and promote the popular vocal, musical and dancing heritage of Thrace and to bring it to the attention of wide audiences at home and abroad. The concerts-spectacles of the ‘Trakiya" Ensemble are original, homogeneous programmes of which the songs, dances, melodies and plastic pictures merge into one another, without alternating as separate numbers or scenes. The three basic formations of the ensemble — choir, orchestra and dance group can be distinguished only conditionally, because the singers dance and play on different instruments, the instrumentalists - sing and dance, while the dancers — sing!
On the basis of the purity, force and characteristic features of the national folklore — combined with a very wide fantasy refined feeling for artistic criterion and originality, the 'Trakiya" Ensemble discloses in an almost authentic manner or in contemporary musical and dancing interpretations - genuine gems of Bulgarian folk art.
The elaboration of the musical programme has been entrusted to the young but already well-established composers — Stefan Moutafchiev, Nikolay Stoykov and Todor Prashtakov.
The inspired performances of the 'Trakiya" Ensemble received a particularly high appraisal already at the First Review of the State and Professional Ensembles for Folksongs and Dances, which was held in Blagoevgrad in 1976. Both the specialists and the press reviews qualified its performances as: "Innovatory spectacles brimming over with discoveries"; “a qualitatively new art which breaks up all traditional forms"; "an example for making contacts with contemporary audiences"; "the climax of the Review"; "the great surprise - atomic blast of the Review".
During its rather short existence the art of the 'Trakiya" State Folk Ensemble acquired a wide popularity in the land. Its exuberant and optimistic performances were also well accepted by audiences in many countries of Europe, Asia and America. Numerous affirmative reviews about the exceptional art of the Ensemble have appeared in the press media, both at home and abroad.
The present gramophone record consists of independent performances of the choir, the soloists and the orchestra of the 'Trakiya" Folk Ensemble, alongside with dance pieces in which all the members of the company take an active part.
Dimiter Dragnev