Created during the first lockdown in Bulgaria in 2020, Flutissimo turned out to be an unexpectedly good combination. In the beginning the group emerged as an ensemble of four flutes. The ladies who created it and continue to tirelessly develop the project are Kremena Acheva, Gergana Ivanova, Petra Atanasova and Mila Tsankova - flutists from the Sofia Philharmonic. After the first concert, they were joined by harpist Vessela Trichkova.
On March 18, "Flautissimo" will give a concert as part of the prestigious international festival "March Music Days". This is the first appearance of the band in the prestigious forum - a fact that is especially exciting for the performers, especially for Kremena and Petra who were born in Ruse and are graduates of the music school in the city.
"Two years ago, when we were isolated and stopped working for months, we started to miss each other, we also missed playing together," says Kremena Acheva, leader of the flute group in Bulgaria’s national symphony orchestra and also a music teacher at the National Music School in Sofia.
"We saw that our colleagues from all over the world started posting videos recorded at home on social networks. We decided to do something like that. We chose a popular piece in an arrangement for four flutes.”
"After we made our debut on social media, we gained a lot of popularity, reaching about 100,000 views, many likes and positive comments," adds Gergana. “The ockdown was over and we decided to do a real concert. The premiere was in the open space of the Kvadrat 500 Gallery - a wonderful summer concert included in the cycle "Romantic Summer" of the Sofia Philharmonic. We received very good reviews from the audience, and we liked the recording of the concert. We started looking for new works for four flutes and a harp, we made several premieres for Bulgaria, composers wrote music especially for us."
Vessela Trichkova, who has been the harpist of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra since 2000, joined after the first concert. She told interesting details about how the selection of works for this non-standard composition is carried out:
"Kremena Acheva found a very interesting work composed for four flutes and harp by Canadian composer Catherine McMichael - Floris Suite - suite" Floris ", each part is named after a different flower. We really liked the music, it was very well received by the audience. We sent a recording to the authorwho was delighted with the performance. The girls then found another of her plays for four flutes on Celtic themes. Since it is difficult to find works, at least I do not know about the existence of another flute quartet with harp, we turned again to Catherine and she adapted two of her works for us - "Faith" and "Hope". We spontaneously asked her where "Love" was and told her about St. Sophia and her three daughters Faith, Hope and Love. The composer was very impressed. She sent us another play called Love. We hope to have the premiere in the summer. The Bulgarian composer Rumen Boyadzhiev Jr. also responded to the idea to build an original repertoire. First he wrote three miniatures for four flutes, then he dedicated "Prelude" and "Arabesque" for four flutes and a harp - wonderful pieces that the audience liked very much. Most recently, he arranged for us his work "Rachenitsa", originally written for a symphony orchestra.
What is the program for the upcoming concert in Ruse?
"In Ruse we will perform theFlower Duetof Delibes, the suite Floris by Catherine McMichael and many other interesting plays. We are expecting our audience on March 18 at 7 pm in the Europe Hall, Dohodno Zdanie venue. Playing in a hall is an exceptional advantage for us. At our open-air concerts in Sofia and Tryavna, it happened that there was wind. The scores were flying around and it was a lot of fun to chase them without interrupting our performance, of course. Fun moments, in fact, accompany us from the very beginning. When we decided to rehearse online, the internet connection presented us with great challenges - the sound was not synching and it was impossible to work. But we found a solution and the result led to the creation of the ensemble”.
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