Conversation with the director Kremena Oksenkrug – ‘Music Manager of the Year’ of the Bulgarian National Radio – on the traditions, challenges, and perspectives for the orchestra
For 90 years, the Sliven Symphony Orchestra has been part of the musical history of the city under the Blue Rocks. It has preserved the musical traditions of the ‘city of the hundred voivodes’ since its founding in 1933 thanks to the dozens of musicians – conductors, soloists, orchestras, who with their high professionalism shape the appearance of the orchestra. The end of the 90th anniversary creative season was also marked by a concert in Bulgaria Hall within Sofia Music Weeks on May 27, 2023. It started with Bulgarian Rhapsody by the famous Sliven composer Misho Todorov, followed by the emblematic for the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg suite Per Gynt. After the two remarkable orchestral works, masterpieces of the opera and operetta art of Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Lehar, Gounod were presented on stage. They were performed by Ilya Skvirskiy, Kudaibergen Abildin and Anle Gou – the laureates of the first international contest The Voice of Kamen, named after Kamen Chanev. The program ended with the immortals “Non ti scordar di me” and “O sole mio”, and the encore “Nessun Dorma”. For two years, the director of the orchestra has been the talented and prominent violinist Kremena Oksenkrug, winner of the of the Bulgarian National Radio’s Musician of the Year 2022 awards – the Music Manager of the Year category, and of Crystal Lyre 2022. For her work with the orchestra, Ms. Oksenkrug kindly answered a few questions of Art Platform.

Ms. Oksenkrug, you were won the Music Manager of the Year award at the Musician of the Year 2022 ceremony of the Bulgarian National Radio in the anniversary year for the Sliven Symphony Orchestra, and you are also the winner of Crystal Lyre 2022. At what stage of your professional development do you receive these awards?
I am very glad that in a very short time (I have been leading the orchestra of the town of Sliven for two seasons) as a leader I received these two awards, which show that my work here in Bulgaria, in particular in Sliven, is bearing fruit, so to speak. I am very glad that most of the prominent Bulgarian musicians, conductors, soloists, as well as critical publications, noticed the presence of the Sliven Symphony Orchestra, which, according to observations, had disappeared from the Bulgarian music scene in recent years. Naturally, for me this is a compliment. But also on the other hand – an expected result of hard work. For me, this job was not particularly expected. As a musician, artist and a person working in the music sphere in general, I continue to work in other European countries. Rather, my return to
Sliven after 20 years of absence was dictated by the pandemic. But after winning the competition for director of the orchestra, I looked at the circumstances more like an artistic challenge – to see to what extent such an institution could develop, although we all know that in Bulgaria at the moment many music and performing arts are suffering in terms of budgets, funds, difficulties with the material base, in terms of audience, if you will. It is not easy, but I decided to take on this task.
Naturally, this led to major changes in my musical, creative life. Since I had previously organized a festival in Venice, Italy, I had to stop this activity because it is physically impossible to do so many things simultaneously. I am also a tutor. Since last year, I have been a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Mons, Belgium. So, I have enough commitments. And in the meantime, I try, of course, to maintain my musical form as a performer – to play the violin. But I think I take all this as a personal cause, and not only for me, but for the whole city, because I think that a city like ours has the potential for cultural development. Society needs such a source of musical culture, of culture in general in our city, because we are, as you know, the only such institute in the entire region – as I call it “a source of serious art”, which is important. It has to be there. Sliven, on the one hand, has limited opportunities, but on the other hand, it is not small at all. According to European measures, a city of a hundred thousand people is a place where cultural life should be of a high quality. I make every effort to make this happen. This is my vision.


Concert Hall of the Prof. Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music – Sofia, June 23, 2023
What are your first memories of your performances with the orchestra (maybe from your childhood years)? What repertoire did you present yourself with?
I left Sliven at the age of 14 to continue my studies at the Burgas Music School. But until this year, several times I was a soloist of the orchestra I lead at the moment. As early as 1996–1997, I remember that for a child in the fourth grade, these were my first appearances on stage as a soloist of a Symphony Orchestra. I was filled with respect and joy, of course, because it is really a great honour for a child to stand in front of the audience of its hometown. And, of course, since then I have good memories, and with some of my colleagues I still work in the orchestra. Many people remind me that the first concert I played with the Sliven Symphony Orchestra was the concerto from L’estro armonico, opus 3 by Antonio Vivaldi in G dur, and that is how it started for me. To this day, Vivaldi is my favourite composer.
I specialized in old music, baroque music in Italy. I lived in Vivaldi’s city. I constantly deepen my knowledge of the music of this composer. I continue to fill it with great happiness. Maybe even then it was a sign.
The program of the orchestra has always been very diverse. Do you have a preference for certain eras, composers as a performer and respectively as a director?
Yes! This is the right moment for me to mention it. I have a very targeted policy, which is related to the orchestra’s program. Since we are now witnessing a lot of intertwining, the so-called crossovers between different styles of music, perhaps in order to attract a wider audience, I think that there are too many colleagues doing these musical experiments, and perhaps it has become rarer for an orchestra or cultural institution to offer the audience purely classical music. I chose this path as the repertoire policy of the orchestra. Naturally, we include works by composers from the Baroque era. Here I would like to point out that (perhaps dictated by my in-depth knowledge on this issue) we insist (at least since I am a director) to perform baroque programs as close as possible to the original pure form – authentic. This is very much appreciated by the audience. We have the resource and the desire and we do it purposefully – we perform baroque music at a very good level, which I dare say can be compared to the European one (because here come guests who are specialists in this field). We use tools that are original in this area.
About the other composers… Of course, our team is not big. This is one of the main problems at the institute. But we try to deal with what is available, as well as guests invited by other orchestras. We mainly focus on classical composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Last year we performed four symphonies by Beethoven plus the triple concerto, which is very well received by the audience – Mozart symphonies. Naturally, we sometimes allow ourselves a wider repertoire – we perform Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, for works that are from the later Romantic era. But, in general, our repertoire is what is intended for a symphony orchestra.


You do educational concerts. What is their programme? Are Sliven composers included, or patriotic songs such as ones by Dobri Chintulov?
Dobri Chintulov and songs in general are included in the educational program of the children and the school. What is not in school is actually classical music. For me, whether the concert is for children, even from a very early age (5–6 years old to 15 years old), or for adults, there should be absolutely no difference in quality. Naturally, we select parts of certain works or make events for children with shorter excerpts. Our goal is to give them the opportunity to listen to Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, composers to whom, unfortunately, it is impossible to have access in the home or school environment. What’s more – to hear them as a live performance as they should be performed. The programme of our educational concerts, when it comes to very young children, includes exactly the same musical content as it would be for an adult concert, but presented as an accompaniment to a fairy tale, if it is intended to the very young. This year we made a project called Musical Tales, where we selected musical parts, excerpts from classical composers to accompany a story. This way it was quite entertaining for the children. Starting next year, we are also planning educational concerts for the higher age segment from the age of 10, where we will tell more about the music, the period, the composers, and the instruments. Accordingly, children will hear them not as a children’s song, or some other form, but as placed in a serious musical context. In my opinion, the most important thing when raising children is that they should be perceived as young people. When we talk about young people, children in high school, years 11–12, i.e., at the age of 18–19, should be invited to our evening concerts. By the way, we have such an agreement with school principals in our city, where one or two classes from the upper years come to a real concert, so to speak.
The winners of the competition named after Kamen Chanev presented themselves at the concert in Bulgaria Hall. Please tell us about this competition – idea, organization, perspectives…
I am not the person who should speak about the competition, as it is actually organized, I think, by the Kamen Chanev Foundation and the State Opera – Plovdiv, i.e., colleagues from the Ancient Theatre. I am very glad that there is such a foundation. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Kamen Chanev personally. Of course, I follow and know his successes, I know what kind of person he was. A great musician, not only for Sliven, but for the whole of Bulgaria. And during such an anniversary show, which we had to prepare, we played not only in Sofia in Bulgaria Hall, but also here in Sliven – with it we opened the May Days of Culture 2023, and I decided to collect several elements that are significant for our orchestra and our town. And as you have already mentioned, it was at this concert that we included works by a Sliven composer – Misho Todorov, where we performed his Bulgarian Rhapsody for a large symphony orchestra. I chose the three tenors precisely because of their relationship with Kamen Chanev, as we know about the tragedy. Unfortunately, we can’t hear him. I decided that these followers of his who won awards from the first competition in his name would be suitable soloists for this concert. The conductor of the concert was Vladimir Kiradzhiev – a musician closely connected to the history of the Symphony Orchestra in Sliven. So that was the reason they were central figures in our anniversary performance. I think it was a good idea, and it turned out to be a real spectacle.
What are the challenges facing an orchestra not from the capital city today?
There are always problems. I don’t like to talk only about them, and how difficult it is. Of course, it is; it is like that for everyone. The challenges are mostly related to replenishment. I think that not only in the orchestras outside the capital city, but also in the ones in it, there is this problem. But here, they are mostly because we do not have young people who want to live and work in Bulgaria. This is the problem; and as you know, the profession of a musician is something that requires specialized education, specialized experience. We are not even talking about talent, but about trained personnel who should come from music schools and music academies in Sofia and Plovdiv. But unfortunately, the people who graduate there are much fewer than the number of musicians needed in Bulgarian orchestras. The result is that we, in maybe 3 or 4 orchestras, use the same staff for our programs, which presents terrible difficulties in coordinating dates and the possibility of a permanent rehearsal process. You know that people are always on the move, especially quality musicians. Now we are trying to have a cooperation with Georgi Kalaydzhiev’s project Music Instead of the Street. He takes on this extremely noble cultural project, where children from the Roma neighbourhood in Sliven are trained to play musical instruments. This project has been in existence for 15 years. Its first fruits are coming now. We already have a young girl, age 19, in our team, who is a graduate of this project, and then a graduate of the Music School in Burgas. But, of course, this is a long period, not something that can happen from today to tomorrow. Another problem involves parents who believe that the prospects for realization – the purely financial ones – are not the same as they would be with some other profession. But, as we know, a musician is not a profession you choose. This is a profession that chooses you. I still hope that more people will consider staying in Bulgaria as an opportunity for professional realization. This is what I myself have done; this is what I intend to convince other colleagues, young colleagues, that they should do. Because this is the only way our work has a future.
In the history of the orchestra, we read that it was a training base of the Bulgarian State Conservatoire…
It was a workers’ opera where young conductors, soloists, orchestras, and singers also came to make and participate in performances. These were their first steps. Many great musicians took their first steps here. While they were still studying, they came here, made performances and returned. Some stayed longer. It was a great form of work. The problem is that we cannot afford it at the moment, because the few students from the Academy already play professionally in most Sofia orchestras.
What are the short-term and long-term prospects?
The prospects are, as unbelievable as it sounds, we still rely on musicians who come from abroad. We try to give them the best conditions, but you understand that perhaps it would be more appropriate for a family of musicians who are looking for the tranquillity of a life similar to the one in Sliven. In general, our city is clean, beautiful, provides opportunities for a young family to live peacefully and hopefully satisfying from a musical point of view. I, as a director, try to provide musicians with an interest in work from a musical point of view, of course, artistic. Because a musician who is good, naturally, also wants realization. Not just the pay is important for them; but also, what conductors and soloists they work with, what repertoire they will play. I can tell you right away that for 90% or more of the Bulgarian orchestras who perform the great symphonies during large concerts, it is much more interesting from a musician’s point of view than performing other types of mixed styles.
What’s next for you as a performer and teacher?
The new school year is about to begin. Last year, five of my students – mainly Ukrainians, Russians, people from Latin America – visited us. We did concerts with them here, as well as in other European music institutions. I am doing a Young Europe project, which presents talented young people – conductors, soloists, chamber musicians – and for them, performing on stage is a very important part of their development, and for us, on the other hand, it is important to witness the reading of great art by young people. For me personally, in addition to my work as a teacher, I am currently preparing the new season of the symphony orchestra. I plan to perform a recording project next year, which is related to a little-known Belgian composer – Guillaume Lekeu, together with two other great young but proven Bulgarian musicians in a trio – Martina Tabakova and Atanas Krastev. Of course, I have an awful lot of projects. The only problem is the lack of time. My year, unfortunately, is distributed from the first day up until June by dates with all the commitments I could make. Of course, I try to pay attention to my family as well.