The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The Festival Choir of Madison will perform Slavic music – including several U.S. and world premieres — under a guest Spanish conductor this Saturday night

By Jacob Stockinger

The Festival Choir of Madison (below) will perform the program “The Slavic Soul” this coming Saturday night, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive.

The Festival Choir will have guest conductor Nikoleta Popova for the event, who is coming from Spain to conduct a program comprised of songs either by Slavic composers or inspired by Slavic music. More about the conductor is below.

Several U.S. premieres are marked with an asterisk and there is one world premiere.

Tickets are $20, $15 for seniors 65 and over; and $10 for students. For information and tickets, go to: https://festivalchoirmadison.squarespace.com/concerts/2018/5/theslavicsoul

Here is the complete program:

THE SLAVIC SOUL

Bela Bartok (1881-1945) – Four Slovak Folk Songs (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1908-1975) – Two Russian Folk Songs. With Anya Gubenkova, alto

Alexander Davidenko (1899–1934) – “At Ten Versts From the Capital”* with Ted Reinke, piano, and Dan Broner, organ

Vera Nasha (Our Faith)* Serbian Folk Song, arr. Yónatan Sánchez Santianes with James McKenzie, percussion

Szymon Godziemba-Trytek (1988) Agnus Dei (World Premiere) with Ted Reinke, organ

Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998) – “A Wondrous Birth”; “Balalaika”; and “Reveille.” With Anya Gubenkova, alto

Dobri Hristov (1875–1941) – “Rachenitsa”

Todor Popov (1921–2000) – “Stara Sa Maika” (The Old Mother)*

“Kalinka,” a Russian Folk Song arranged by Vadim Prokhorov

The guest conductor is Nikoleta Popova (below) of Bulgaria and Spain. She is a renowned specialist in Eastern European and Bulgarian music and has offered seminars and master classes all over the world.

Currently, Popova is Professor in Conducting at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Canarias in Las Palmas, Spain, where she is also music director of the conservatory orchestra and choirs. She has appeared as guest conductor in Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the U.S., as well as her native Bulgaria.

Born in Dobrich, Bulgaria, Nikoleta Popova received her education as a conductor from the National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria, and from Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz. Among her teachers are Eric Whitacre, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Alex Schillings, Klaas Stok, Marco Antonio Da Silva Ramos, and others.

In 2011 Nikoleta Popova received her Ph.D. from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with a dissertation on the performance of the black spiritual. Since 2012, she has published three books in Spanish with in-depth analysis of the problems that singers and conductors face in the interpretation of African-American spirituals.