Kaufmann Association

KAUFMANN PROJECT-DIVI GLASOVE
‘’KAUFMANN PROJECT-DIVI GLASOVE’’ is a new and unusual project based on Balkan and mainly Bulgarian folk polyphony and asymmetric rhythms. The music of "KAUFMANN PROJECT – DIVI GLASOVE" with its non-standard, quirky magical -shamanic style has a strong emotional influence on the audience of different generations, social groups and nationalities. It is also very suitable for film music and is already taken in three movies.
The idea of creating "KAUFMANN PROJECT – DIVI GLASOVE" belongs to Maria Kaufmann , a daughter of academician Prof. Dr. Nikolay Kaufmann , a world-renowned composer and ethnomusicologist , who is the main composer of ‘’Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’’ and whose song "Childless Bride” brought a "Grammy" award to the second album of " The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices". Maria studied classical flute in the class of the world famous flautist Patrick Gallois in Paris.
The music of "KAUFMANN PROJECT – DIVI GLASOVE" was created by Maria Kaufmann, her mother Dimitrina Kaufmann (prof. Dr. of ethnomusicology, a scholar in dialectology and researcher of Balkan polyphony and improvisational folklore genres at the Bulgarian Academy of Science) and Alex Nushev (a sound engineer and composer, in whose studio the recordings were made).
The main idea of the authors was to convey the lost connection between music and its ritual context and to awaken the huge primary force of music. That is why the soloist of ‘’The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices” Elena Bozhkova was chosen to be the main soloist voice in the project. She is a natural carrier of the old vocal and ornamental musical techniques. Her amazing voice has magical power and elementary sound and in combination with the brilliant but also lyrical voice of her student Polina Paunova, contrasts strongly by timbre and register to the shamanic choir. The idea of the project is to present a magical atmosphere associated with conjuring techniques. Therefore, a major component of the project is the shamanic choir which is performed by women with very low voices, altos- Silvia Nenkova with her deep, velvety voice, Dimitrina Kaufmann who’s voice has almost a male timbre , Maria Kaufmann and contra-alto - the lowest and unique folk female voice in Bulgaria – Mariyana Pavlova, who covers from A- B of the contra octave to g of the first octave. She is a candidate for the Guinness World Records for ''the lowest vocal note by a female ". Her voice, in the lower register, gives her a male priestly function and enhances the mystique of the works. In the pieces, a variety of percussions from different cultures and continents is used, which relates Balkan folk to the world music. They are performed by one of the most famous, equally successful both in the classical (he is the principal percussionist of the Sofia Philharmony) and in other genres, Bulgarian percussionist Stoyan Pavlov-Stundzhi who is an excellent master of Bulgarian asymmetric meters. Despite her classical training, in this project, Maria Kaufmann has sought entirely different, deeper and more opaque, mystical sound . That is why her flute sounds like an exotic instrument, different from the aesthetics of the classical one.