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I grew up with my brother Solomon playing many games with him. I remember many hours spent with the children from the neighborhood. In winter we usually went sledding from Hisarluka hill nearby Kjustendil. In summer we burnished the sledges with glass-paper so that they would slide better in winter and waited impatiently for winter to come. The sleds were large and heavy and in order to reach the hill's peak, from where we used to coast down, we had to push them all the way up. And that was all for the sake of those five minutes of pleasure while coasting down. Yes, we were restless. When we were down, at the foot of the hill, we went straight up again pushing the sleds, and that were five to six kilometers, to the top! When we were little kids, not all of us had sleds, so the older children let us coast down next to them. Later each one of us had his own sled. Yet, one had a choice - if you didn't want to push your sled to the top, you could stay at the foot of the hill and play.
There was a tradition in Kjustendil whenever such winter toboggan-slides were organized [for children and adults], at the foot of the hill a small orchestra was performing. So you either push the sled, or you play at the bottom. I often chose the latter and played the violin. Usually it was so cold, that I had a special task - every half an hour or whenever it became too freezing for us, I gathered five to six musicians and I brought them home to warm up for a couple of minutes, and then we continued playing. In another half an hour, I took another group home, and so it went during the whole day. The orchestra comprised around 30 people, 15 to 16-year-old students mostly. We played jolly melodies that people could cheer up with - polkas, marches. I beat the drum. It was nice!
They used to call our neighborhood 'the musical neighborhood', as all of us happened to be 'musical people' there. I played the violin and was the oldest among the cousins. They learned playing the violin along with me, and some even became pianists. Two boys used to live opposite us - one of them was a contrabass player and the other one was a cellist. In the house next to them there was a violinist and a flutist and another contrabass player. There were many people interested in music in our provincial town at that time. We played in an orchestra in school. There was a small room in Kjustendil we used to rehearse in. The violinists played their own instruments while the wind instruments were state ones. Sometimes we gave concerts on the main square in Kjustendil. I was surrounded by music in my childhood and that fact determined my whole professional and personal life to a great extent.
There was a tradition in Kjustendil whenever such winter toboggan-slides were organized [for children and adults], at the foot of the hill a small orchestra was performing. So you either push the sled, or you play at the bottom. I often chose the latter and played the violin. Usually it was so cold, that I had a special task - every half an hour or whenever it became too freezing for us, I gathered five to six musicians and I brought them home to warm up for a couple of minutes, and then we continued playing. In another half an hour, I took another group home, and so it went during the whole day. The orchestra comprised around 30 people, 15 to 16-year-old students mostly. We played jolly melodies that people could cheer up with - polkas, marches. I beat the drum. It was nice!
They used to call our neighborhood 'the musical neighborhood', as all of us happened to be 'musical people' there. I played the violin and was the oldest among the cousins. They learned playing the violin along with me, and some even became pianists. Two boys used to live opposite us - one of them was a contrabass player and the other one was a cellist. In the house next to them there was a violinist and a flutist and another contrabass player. There were many people interested in music in our provincial town at that time. We played in an orchestra in school. There was a small room in Kjustendil we used to rehearse in. The violinists played their own instruments while the wind instruments were state ones. Sometimes we gave concerts on the main square in Kjustendil. I was surrounded by music in my childhood and that fact determined my whole professional and personal life to a great extent.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Leon Lazarov