Wonderful spiritual atmosphere at “Ohrid Summer” with the female choir “Menada”
The female youth choir “Menada” from Tetovo last night performed at the festival “Ohrid Summer” bringing in the vestibule of the church “St. Sophia” Orthodox spiritual music, which once again confirmed the epithet ambassador of Macedonian choral music in the world.
This renowned choir that nurtures compositions from different eras and styles from the Macedonian and world a-chapel and vocal-instrumental music under the baton of Ivica Zoric, returns to the festival stage in Ohrid after two decades.
– It is a great pleasure to be at the Ohrid Summer Festival, which this year celebrates 61 years of existence and I am glad that exactly 20 years ago, on August 8, 2001 we had a concert of Orthodox music in the church “St. Sophia” which was very successful and has been reproduced several times on the Macedonian Radio and Television, says maestro Zoric.
The Menada Choir has performed in about 20 countries around the world, from where it always returns with numerous awards from international festivals.
– It is best when you do what fulfills you. I have been doing this with pleasure for four decades now with the Menada Women’s Youth Choir, which I have founded. All these years we survive, work and achieve results. I am also glad that from the former girls who were members of the choir “Menada”, today their daughters sing in it, so that in a way we became a family choir. I hope we will continue on that path, adds Zoric.
Within the music program of the Ohrid Summer Festival, compositions in Old Slavonic, Macedonian, Greek and Russian were presented by various authors such as Grigorij Prvopeec, Bobekov, Golaboski, Mokranjac, Ilija Hadzi Dimzov, Vedel, Stojkov, Bortnjanski and Kastalski. Vlatko Gruevski performed as a soloist with fragments from the cantata “Mirror” by the composer Stojan Stojkov, and Milena Ilievska had a prayer call during the Byzantine chant “Holy God”.
-Eight compositions with which we performed were of Byzantine origin and were written in Byzantine style, and the rest were with a harmonious background in several languages, composers from several countries in which Orthodox spiritual music is nurtured. We had Macedonian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Russian composers, and we sang in several languages, Old Slavonic, Macedonian, Russian, Greek. Orthodoxy is part of our repertoire. In addition to other compositions that differ in style, we practice and nurture Orthodox spiritual music because it is our past, but we hope and strive to convey those feelings and be a future for the generations to come, explains maestro Zoric.
The renowned choir conductor Zoric, who is well known not only to the Macedonian, but also to the international cultural public, is the first doctor in the field of interpretation in the Republic of Northern Macedonia. In 1977 he founded the children’s choir “Lale”, and four years later the women’s youth choir “Menada”. He has included more than 500 compositions of different styles and epochs in the repertoire of choirs, in 18 languages.
