Founder of the “Morski Zvutsi” Choir

Prof. Marin Chonev

1932  ·  2012

For fifty-five years without interruption he stood before the “Morski Zvutsi” choir. In that time he turned a city ensemble into a name known on Europe’s choral stages, founded the Varna Boys’ Choir, launched the May choir competition in Varna, and left behind a choral school that today bears his name.

Portrait

The Man Who Made Varna a Choral City

Marin Chonev (1932 - 2012) was connected to the choral art of Varna in a way few people are connected to a city. Conductor, pedagogue, organizer and public figure, he worked on three fronts at once: building ensembles, building the people to lead them, and building the stage on which they would be heard.

The result is rare for Bulgarian culture: not a single success, but an entire infrastructure. A mixed choir, a boys’ and youth choir, an international competition, a course for conductors, an international music academy, a university music department, a network of teachers’ choirs across Northeastern Bulgaria. Each of these outlived its creator.

He did not simply conduct choirs. He created the environment in which choral singing could exist.

1956 - 2011

The “Morski Zvutsi” Choir

In 1956 Marin Chonev founded the representative “Morski Zvutsi” Mixed Choir of the Municipality of Varna and remained its principal conductor without interruption until the end of 2011. Fifty-five years at the head of one ensemble is a tenure with few parallels in European choral practice.

The repertoire he built was deliberately broad: works by Bulgarian and foreign choral composers from the Renaissance to the present day, Eastern Orthodox chants, and the great cantata and oratorio literature. Among the titles are Cherubini’s “Requiem”, Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells”, Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater”, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “Requiem”, and works by Bach, Brahms, Verdi, Alexander Raichev and Mikis Theodorakis.

Under his direction the choir won high honours at the major choral forums: Middlesbrough, Gorizia, Cork, Cantonigròs, as well as the Varna International Choir Competition.

19 November 1969

The Varna Boys’ and Youth Choir

On 19 November 1969 Chonev founded the Varna Boys’ Choir. With it he effectively launched the concert life of boys’ choirs in Bulgaria outside the capital.

The idea was innovative in its organization as well. Instead of boys leaving the ensemble when their voices changed, young men were added to the choir, so that a singer could remain in it throughout his entire journey from boy to man. Today the school maintains around one hundred boys and young men in several formations: a preparatory group, a trainee group and three independent concert ensembles.

With this choir Chonev won the Grand Prize at the song competition in Rostock, Germany, as well as the highest distinction, Summa cum laude, at the choir competition in Neerpelt, Belgium. Honours followed from Montreux, Poznań, Delphi, Shumen and Gabrovo, and concert tours took the ensemble through Poland, Germany, Greece, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy and the USA.

The Forum

The May Choir Competition

Marin Chonev was the initiator and creator of the Varna choir competition, first held in 1975. Since 1982 the forum has borne the name of his teacher, Prof. Georgi Dimitrov.

Today the “Prof. Georgi Dimitrov” International May Choir Competition is part of the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing circuit, which places it among the most prestigious competitions in the world. Chonev remained its president until the end of his life.

In 1997 the International Course for Conductors of Choral, Cantata and Oratorio Music was launched, with Marin Chonev as its director. At the foundation of the course lay the idea and initiative of his son Kalin Tchonev, living in the USA, to create an academic and musical exchange between the two countries.

1999

The International Music Academy

The academy was born from the idea and initiative of Kalin Tchonev, who has lived in the USA since 1995 and whose goal was to create an academic and musical exchange between Bulgaria and America. In 1999 he founded it together with his father. It is held in Bulgaria, and later in other countries as well, while its headquarters from the very beginning has been in Columbia, South Carolina, USA.

Kalin Tchonev has been the academy’s Executive Director from its founding to this day, managing all administrative, financial and organizational activities together with his wife Sharon. At his invitation, thousands of American musicians have taken part in the academy over the years. Marin Chonev was one of its principal lecturers.

The Pedagogue

Academic and Educational Work

Chonev was a professor of choral conducting at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv. In 1985 he became the first head of the newly established Department of Music at the Higher Pedagogical Institute in Shumen, today the “Konstantin Preslavsky” University of Shumen. In 2000 the university awarded him the title Doctor Honoris Causa.

A separate and little-known part of his work concerns the teachers’ choirs. He was the only conductor to lead teachers’ choral ensembles in Northeastern Bulgaria, an initiative that brought together the music teachers of the region, raised their qualifications and brought singing back into schools.

Generations of singers and conductors passed through his hands. A great part of Varna’s choral life today is led by his students.

Recognition

Honours

Timeline

The Journey

Why This Matters Today

An Archive That Still Sounds

Behind fifty-five years of concert activity stands a vast audio and documentary archive: recordings, programmes, posters, photographs, correspondence. A large part of it has not been digitized and is not accessible to those who might seek it.

If you have recordings, photographs or memories from the years of Prof. Chonev, please get in touch with us.