THE ARTIST VALENTIN DONCHEVSKI PRESENTED HIS MULTI-COLOURED TALENTS AT FOBA

26.11.2024 https://dolap.bg/

On 25 November 2024, as an accompanying event of the 54th Festival of the Opera and Ballet Arts /FOBA/ – Stara Zagora, the famous artist Valentin Donchevski, in an unusual format presented his talent of a poet, composer and performer.

In the last years, the Festival has presented creators whose talent is projected in different artistic areas. Till now artistic exhibitions were presented by musicians and singers. This year is the other way round – an artist who sings, composes and plays. Valentin Donchevski showed 6 author’s clips, made this year. “Accomplices” in this work are also Asen Zagorov – director, cameraman and computer designer, Veselin Kalchev – composer and and arranger and the journalist Stoyan Stratiev – a musician, cameraman with a strong sense of aesthetics.
Before showing the clips, during the discussion, on the screen were projected pictures by Valyo Donchevski.

Before the Festival audience, the hero of the evening shared his appeal for the opera since his earliest childhood. He thanked the director of the Stara Zagora State Opera Ognyan Draganov for accepting his idea to reveal his other talents too. He shared that in this lobby he left his signature – given as a gift large picture, and in the places of the lost tapestries on the walls during the fire in the opera, now are his enlarged pictures.

“My love for the different arts is not an aim in itself, shared Donchevski – my grandmother Zoya played the guitar, which I also learned playing. My mother was an artist, an excellent student of one of the most eminent painters – Dimitar Karadzhov. In fact I also had contact with him in my first steps to the art painting. My grandfather knew about 300 folk songs. My father was an architect. I had great love for books. My mother taught me how to read when I was 4 years old. Maybe from there comes my appeal for the book, for the writing of books. In the secondary school, we made a rock band with my colleagues Nedko Itinov and Vladomir Chukich, who later became great painters. With them we made a small group. Then we sang in the Radio Factory in Tarnovo, where we made an exhibition. There I wrote my first text for the local newspaper. During my military service, I played in another band UKV 79.

When I returned to Stara Zagora., the young artists organized the exhibition “Barefoot Dog is Knocking at the Door”. Then I wrote a text which was published in the local newspaper “September”. Then I wrote a song to the text of “Barefoot Dog”.
When I started teaching our daughter how to play the guitar, I realized I could write songs. The first two songs were about the bad dog and “The Quiet Spring Rain…”, a poem by Nikolay Liliev.
Now is the moment to show 5-6 clips, which were made this year”.

“Valyo Donchevski is a creator with exceptionally interesting searches, bravery and this is not an aim in itself. The creator does not copy the world, he lives in, but creates a parallel world, reflected in his creative work, shared the leader of the Stara Zagora artists, the graphic artist Mihail Kyosev – Valyo searches, discovers and like many great artists swims, swims, swims, gets tired and stops to have a rest in a harbour which is called folklore art. His source of inspiration, there was such a period, is the Bulgarian carpet. It is multi-coloured, sometimes with contradictory colours, they do not match one another, but there is a third one which balances them. The rest in this harbour gives him strength to move forward.

The Bulgarian carpet, the Bulgarian costume, are like the multi-vocal cosmic acapella singing. He, who manages to master this, reaches another, higher level.”

About the first clip “Only You” Donchevski tells the following: “Veselin Kalchev told me that there is a song about Bulgaria. The text had to be about the love for a woman, but implying our motherland. This is why no one managed to write a text and sing it. I got ambitious and was able to make the piece”. The pictures are taken in Stara Zagora and personally to me it sounded like a love confession to the city of the linden trees.

The second clip is “Fiery Hearts”. It is given as a gift to the invalids with the possibility to use it as an anthem. Later it was transformed, some other couplets were added. The song is dedicated to the small man on whom the world also depends. The clip was also made in Stara Zagora – on the upper and low fountain in the surroundings of Yagoda and Tulovo with the special participation of the Prima ballerina Aneliya Dimitrova.

In 2018 was made the clip “Forever”, realized with Stoyan Stratiev. The clip was filmed in his studio. It is dedicated to a child’s love.
The clip “Who are You” is connected with the big exhibition of Valentin Donchevski in Sofia, realized this year in September. It was made as a happening on an enormous picture. The theme is related to questions to which no one in the world has an answer: Who are you? What are you? Where are you? Where are you going?

“Words of Love” is dedicated to Paris. It was made in the studio and later pieces were added while the artist was specializing in Paris.
The last piece was “A Twin of the Wind”. The clip was made on the second slope of the terrace in the winter. It was made only with GSM. This is a long text, like a folk song, in a blues version. It tells of a mother whom a fortune-teller predicts that she will give birth to a son, whom after she brings him up, she will let him go and cope on his own in the world. For this aim, he has to forget her and his father in order to learn to fly on his own.

The signature event finished with the prayer to God “Our father…” to music by Donchevski, sung live by him.
All clips are in You Tube and everybody can see and hear them.

Rositsa Rancheva