Download PANCHO VLADIGEROV MUSEUM COMPLEX „All my life I have

PANCHO VLADIGEROV MUSEUM COMPLEX
„All my life I have been bound up with my home town, where I
have always found inspiration and this inspiration I call Shumen, which
means that it is also Bulgarian.”
Pancho Vladigerov
The only in Bulgaria museum complex devoted to music is on the old Arasta Street
(the modern Tsar Osvoboditel). It consists of two separate museum exhibitions – Pancho
Vladigerov house museum and The Music Life in Shumen exhibition. The complex has a
temporary exhibitions hall and a concert hall.
The house where the world known composer Pancho Vladigerov took his first steps in
music is now a museum. This is the home of the Zhekov family – Alexander and Pavla – the
place where at the age of six Pancho took his first piano lesson. His teacher was Pavla
Weissman Zhekova, who later became his mother-in-law.
Pancho Vladigerov was born on the 13th of March 1899. Under a combination of
circumstances he was born in Zurich, not in Shumen – a town with old traditions, where his
parents lived and where he spent his childhood, the town he felt was his home, the town with
which he was mound up through all of his life. During his speech on his 60th anniversary held
in Shumen, Pancho Vladigerov said: When I settled in Bulgaria, every time I felt the
inspiration for a great musical piece, I went back to my home town to work on it. It is not
accidental that all of my best works I created here.
The museum was opened on the 6th of October 1983. Its mission was to preserve the
recollection of the great composer, of the place where he launched into the musical scenes
around the world, of his friends and relatives, of the biggest names in the history of music.
One of them is Pancho Vladigerov with his great talent and his eternal works.
The gentle sound of the music of Vladigerov receives the guests of the home. The
reconstructed parlor reveals the atmosphere in which shumeners lived in the beginning of the
20th c. The study of the eminent composer is on the second floor – it was also the bedroom of
Vladigerov and his wife Ekaterina. Vladigerov childhood piano, given to him by his
grandfather Leon Pasternak, personal belongings and his own note manuscripts that turned
into masterpieces are displayed here. The documental exhibition shows moments from the
childhood and students’ years of the twins – Pancho and Luben Vladigerov.
The exhibition called The Music Life in Shumen is displayed in the house of the
eminent Kardzhiev family from Shumen and was opened in 1984. It traces back the history of
the music life in Shumen – from the first Bulgarian orchestra for European music gathered in
1850 to the success of the musicians from Shumen nowadays. Significant events from the
history of the Bulgarian music are covered, such as the first Bulgarian operetta staged in 1906,
the origin and development of the art of choir, etc. Chronologically, the events and the
persons related to them are depicted – composers, conductors, pedagogues, players – who left
their marks in the Bulgarian and world’s music culture. Mihaly Safrany, Dobri Voynikov,
Anastas Stoyanov, Rachko Rachev, Andrey and Veselin Stoyanov, Veliko Dyugmedzhiev,
Veselin Spirov, Georgi Babachev, Dimitar Tyulev, Veneta Vicheva, Ginka Gichkova, Milena
Mollova, Alexander Vladigerov, Alexander Spirov, Alexandrina Milcheva, Hristina
Angelakova, Evgenia-Maria Popova, Roxana Bogdanova are amongst them.
Pancho Vladigerov Museum Complex today is the seat of both young and proved
musicians. Although it is a museum, the complex is not a frozen exhibition, but a venue – the
place where residents and guests of Shumen have the chance to feel the music. Students of
music schools in Shumen and Bulgaria, laureates of national and international competitions,
members of the Vladigerov family, and pupils of the great composer give concerts here
frequently. Music is always heard in the chamber hall in the complex. Life music is offered to
the guests of the exhibitions. Music is heard in the yard – all verdant, where in 1990 a
monument of Pancho Vladigerov was unveiled, worked by the sculptor Velichko Minekov.
Rehearsals in the chamber hall or rendezvous with loved musicians, books presentations and
Francis Poulenc’s monodrama La voix humaine are only a small part of all the events held in
this vivid place.
Since 1986 Shumen is the host of a national and international competition for young
piano and violin players, named after the great Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov.