Where did you grow up?
In Sofia, which is the capital city of Bulgaria.
How would your elementary school classmates remember you?
Well, I studied with the same group of people all the way until high school (this is how things worked in Bulgaria when I was in school). So, their memories of me might be fresher than elementary school.
Name four fictional characters with whom you'd be okay being stuck in an elevator. Why them?
If I had a choice, I would prefer it not to be an elevator, but...Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities, since I feel his story remains untold in this grand book. So, you know how elevators and train compartments make people tell things they would never otherwise think of telling? I think he is a great character and I wish to know more about him than the book has given me.
Someone resourceful like Emil of Loneberga (by Astrid Lindgren) would be fun, because he might actually come up with a way to get the elevator moving. When he gets locked up in the wood shed after doing something naughty he makes little people sculptures out of spare pieces of wood, so he is never bored (aka never boring).
Now leaving the world of fiction and going to the world of music, I would love to be stuck in an elevator with either Robert Schumann or J. S. Bach. Or Brahms. Or Mozart. Or Ravel. Or Liszt. Or...so many of those composers were so fascinating. It would definitely be time well spent. But definitely Schumann and Bach first.
If you were a cartoon character, which cartoon character would you be?
Curious George.
When did you fall in love with music?
It is hard to pinpoint this moment, as falling and being in love with music is an ever ongoing, expanding puzzle. But it must have started early on - my mom played a recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (another composer I would be happy to sit with in an elevator) when I was little, or even before I was born, and I love listening to this piece to this day. I sat through a live performance of Richard Strauss' opera Salome when I was four and do not remember being bored, so this must have gotten me interested in both music and theater, and, of course, opera. And I remember hearing for the first time in my life Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (#6) when I was 7 or 8 yo, and although I do not have much of a memory of the quiet movements, I remember vividly the sense of absolute catharsis after hearing the Storm movement.
Don't miss Ralitza's A Room with a Symphony: Fascinated by Nature at the Burnt Cove Church next Tuesday, July 21, at 7 pm!
Name four fictional characters with whom you'd be okay being stuck in an elevator. Why them?
If I had a choice, I would prefer it not to be an elevator, but...Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities, since I feel his story remains untold in this grand book. So, you know how elevators and train compartments make people tell things they would never otherwise think of telling? I think he is a great character and I wish to know more about him than the book has given me.
Someone resourceful like Emil of Loneberga (by Astrid Lindgren) would be fun, because he might actually come up with a way to get the elevator moving. When he gets locked up in the wood shed after doing something naughty he makes little people sculptures out of spare pieces of wood, so he is never bored (aka never boring).
Now leaving the world of fiction and going to the world of music, I would love to be stuck in an elevator with either Robert Schumann or J. S. Bach. Or Brahms. Or Mozart. Or Ravel. Or Liszt. Or...so many of those composers were so fascinating. It would definitely be time well spent. But definitely Schumann and Bach first.
If you were a cartoon character, which cartoon character would you be?
When did you fall in love with music?
It is hard to pinpoint this moment, as falling and being in love with music is an ever ongoing, expanding puzzle. But it must have started early on - my mom played a recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (another composer I would be happy to sit with in an elevator) when I was little, or even before I was born, and I love listening to this piece to this day. I sat through a live performance of Richard Strauss' opera Salome when I was four and do not remember being bored, so this must have gotten me interested in both music and theater, and, of course, opera. And I remember hearing for the first time in my life Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (#6) when I was 7 or 8 yo, and although I do not have much of a memory of the quiet movements, I remember vividly the sense of absolute catharsis after hearing the Storm movement.
Don't miss Ralitza's A Room with a Symphony: Fascinated by Nature at the Burnt Cove Church next Tuesday, July 21, at 7 pm!
