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Philip Koutev Ensemble
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Philip Koutev Ensemble · Filip Kutev, often spelled Philip Koutev in the Western manner, was a Bulgarian composer and arranger, born in 1903 in Aytos. In 1951, together with his wife Maria Kuteva, he founded Bulgaria's first professional, state-funded ensemble: the State Ensemble for Folk Song and Dance, also known as the Filip Kutev Ensemble. His name has remained attached to the choir to this day.
Music and breakthrough
With this ensemble Kutev paved the way for a new way of arranging folk songs. He combined elements of folk music with Western classical forms and harmonies. In this way a new Bulgarian choral tradition came into being, which gave a stage to a people with a rich singing culture. The records show it, for example Koutev Bulgarian National Ensemble (1963) and Bulgarian Polyphony, which appeared in 1989 and 1990. The word polyphony means a great deal in Bulgarian, because the choirs sing in tense, sharp harmonies.
Influence
The choir was one of the four choirs on the album Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume Two, which won a Grammy in 1989. That brought Bulgarian singing to a worldwide audience, far beyond the country's borders. Kutev died in 1982. A mountain peak in Antarctica bears his name. The course chooses Polegnala e Todora from 1998, a folk song that is heard in such choral arrangements.
Listening
Polegnala e Todora · Philip Koutev Ensemble, 1998
Discography
Studio albums
- 1963Monitor Presents Koutev Bulgarian National Ensemble
- 1989Bulgarian Polyphony, Volume 2
- 1990Bulgarian Polyphony [I]