Conductor Sasho Tatarchevski has been the head of the Women's Youth Choir at the MCC since 2004 and together they achieve fantastic success in choral music, and that is only part of the 50-year development of the most awarded Macedonian choir.

The Women's Youth Choir at the Youth Cultural Center in Skopje, from its establishment in 1972 until today, actually represents one of the most recognizable features in the 50-year existence of the MCC. Performing a huge and varied repertoire, the ensemble showed that even amateur singers can achieve top professional results and win many awards and recognitions at domestic and international competitions and festivals.

The conductor Sasho Tatarchevski works as a professor of a group of subjects in the field of conducting at FMU - Skopje, he is the artistic director of the professional choir "Pro Ars", he has performed with several different ensembles here and around the world, and he also makes his mark as the director of the Women's Youth choir at MCC.

Bearing in mind his 18-year "chemistry" with the Women's Youth Choir, in a conversation with Tatarchevski we reveal fragments of the choir's history, as well as details of the activities in the jubilee year.

The Women's Youth Choir at MCC is celebrating a big anniversary this year - 50 years of existence. What are the plans for celebrating the anniversary?

– This anniversary represents much more than just 50 years of existence. This anniversary marks half a century of success story, half a century of education of hundreds of young girls, half a century of continuous work and worthy presentation of Macedonian culture around the world, half a century of encouragement and nurturing of Macedonian choral creativity. This rounded figure also represents countless hours of hard work, resignations, personal stakes, endless enthusiasm, fighting windmills, walking firmly against the wind, and countless disappointments from ignorance and carelessness on the part of those who are paid to look after the development of culture in our country. , but also countless joys from the results achieved and the status of a top female ensemble that we enjoy in the international choral community.

Bearing all this in mind, this year we made an effort to celebrate this great anniversary at a level that fits the results and meaning of this cultural brand, and this implies participation in events at the highest level and cooperation with ensembles worthy of the quality of the Women's Youth Choir (ZMH ). The plan is being implemented according to the planned dynamics and we have already completed four events of an international nature, and by the end of the year we will participate in two more.

At the international choral forum in Struga, we had the honor to work and perform together with the boys' choir from the Estonian National Opera, one of the world-famous such ensembles, which is celebrating the same anniversary as us, 50 years since its establishment.

In Novi Sad, the European Capital of Culture for 2022, we collaborated with choirs from Belgium, Spain and Serbia, and we are looking forward to our visit to the highest quality choral event organized this year in the world, the international choral festival in Njiregyhaza, Hungary . There we will have the honor to celebrate together with some of the world's best choral ensembles coming from the USA, Hungary, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Turkey and other countries.

You recently returned from a performance in Novi Sad, which is the European Capital of Culture this year. At whose invitation were you there and with what feelings did you return home?

- In Novi Sad, we participated in the "Singing Bridges" festival, which is part of the program of the "Novi Sad - European Capital of Culture 2022" event, at the invitation and insistence of the organizers. Of course, with their financial support. The festival had a really packed agenda and offered intense collaboration and interaction with all the other participants. With the choir, we participated in two so-called "Open singing" performances, we held an all-night concert in the synagogue and together with members of three other choirs, we performed the composition "A little jazz mass" by Bob Chilcott.

In addition, I held a workshop for the participants of the festival. All this within three days. Despite this dynamic of work, we returned from there with extraordinary impressions and a feeling of enormous respect and esteem that we received from the audience, other choirs and fellow conductors after our performances. The tears of some of the audience after singing some of the compositions and the applause after the end of our all-night concert will remain engraved in our memory as a wonderful experience.

Practically, how many performances does ZMH have per year?

- The number of performances varies depending on the conditions in a given year, but it is important to know that ZMH operates 10 months a year and has the most activities of any other choral ensemble in our country. Of course, the quality of those performances is more important than the quantity. That quality does not only refer to the level of performance, which goes without saying, but also to the thoughtfulness and soundness of the program and the way of presentation.

What does it mean to have a choir - how many voices, vocalists and soloists does a standard choir have, and how many members does ZMH have at MCC?

– There are various vocal formations that can be considered choirs. Depending on the number, they can be conducted as chamber, standard or large choral ensembles. According to their age, they can be children's, youth's or adults', and according to their composition, they can be homogeneous or mixed. Of course, a division can also be made according to the way of functioning, i.e. whether the choir has the status of an amateur or professional ensemble. The choir may or may not have soloists. As for ZMH, the number of choristers is currently 30, and we perform in different formations according to the needs of the program and according to the possibilities during the realization of the tours.

What are the success factors of a choir?

– Many "cubes" need to fit together for a choral ensemble to be successful. The main "culprit" for success is, of course, the manager or the conductor. The choir is a mirror of the conductor and what the audience sees and hears is, in fact, a reflection of the conductor's personality and professional profile. But that is only one of the factors. Motivated and dedicated choristers, hard work, logistical and financial support, as well as suitable working conditions are also needed.

As with any group activity, "chemistry" is needed between the leader and the ensemble members, as well as between them. The most successful ensembles are tightly knit groups of people who have excellent mutual cooperation both within the ensemble and in their private lives. I can confirm with pleasure that ZMH is such an ensemble.

What and how much repertoire does the choir perform and what does the repertoire depend on?

– The repertoire of ZMH is very rich and diverse. Macedonian choral creativity has always been in the foreground, regardless of who was the director at a given moment. But I don't stop at that and I make sure that all choral styles and genres are sufficiently represented in the choir's annual repertoire. The range of music we perform is vast and includes a cappella choral compositions from all musical eras of classical music, spirituals, folk arrangements, jazz and pop arrangements, film music arrangements, etc. Apart from acapella, I often include vocal-instrumental works in the repertoire, which we perform in collaboration with various instrumental formations.

How long have you been the director of ZMH and who were your predecessors in the long history of the choir?

- The Women's Youth Choir was formed in 1972 by Professor Dragan Shuplevski. After several years, Shuplevski hired the then young Zapro Zaprov as his assistant, who gradually took over the work with the choir and managed it successfully for more than twenty years. The founder of the choir, prof. Shuplevski, again takes over the management of the choir at the beginning of the new millennium, and after his death the choir is managed by his assistant Emilia Lale.

I want to emphasize that all these conductors put in a lot of effort and made a huge contribution to the development of the choir and its establishment as one of the most successful ensembles in our country. After my colleague Emilia Lale emigrated abroad, I was asked by the then management of MCC to prepare and conduct the choir on an already scheduled tour in Switzerland. Although the collaboration happened suddenly, the success of the tour made me think about the offer to work with ZMH continuously and from 2004 until now I have been doing it with a lot of love and enthusiasm.

One of the most significant features of ZMH is that it has won many first places in numerous international competitions. What do those awards mean for the choir and how were they received by the Macedonian public?

- First of all, I would like to emphasize that music is not a sport and I am not very happy to participate in music competitions. But on the other hand, I have realized that such events are very useful from a pedagogical point of view and from the point of view of rapid progress in the quality of the ensembles. Namely, the competitive spirit that is present in the majority of young people makes them engage as much as possible in the preparations for the competitions and surpass themselves, thereby giving the conductor the opportunity to raise the bar of quality, which he must "jump" in the future. each member of the ensemble.

The Women's Youth Choir at MCC is the most awarded ensemble in our country and is "responsible" for raising the national flag to the highest pedestal at many international events. The list of first, special and Grand Prix prizes won would be too long to include in this interview. Of course, every success means a lot to us, because it is a confirmation of the good and hard work needed to achieve such successes, and it also represents international promotion of our country and culture.

Unfortunately, the feeling that our successes are not visible enough in the Macedonian public has followed us for many years. Even more paradoxical is the fact that the support from the Ministry of Culture decreases every year in direct proportion to the increase in our successes, while at the same time disproportionately more funds are allocated to ensembles that are not even close to the level of quality and achievements of ZMH, and not even regularly work and contribute to the development of choral art in the country.

However, a fortunate circumstance for the continued successful promotion of Macedonian culture abroad is that the foreign organizers of important cultural events in their countries are much more aware of the quality with which ZMH can enrich their events, and that is why they finance it, partially or fully. , our participation in these important events.

Are you planning a central event to mark the anniversary?

- As I said before, we made an effort to mark the jubilee year with performances at extremely high-quality events in our country and abroad and in cooperation with outstanding choral ensembles. We will do that until the end of 2022, and we will conclude with a concert in Skopje to which people who have been involved in the 50-year successful growth of the choir will be invited. We invite you and all your readers to follow the MCC website, where we will post all the information regarding our activities until the end of 2022, including the final concert.

(The interview was published in "Kulturen Pechat" issue 140, in the print edition of the newspaper "Sloboden Pechat" on August 6-7, 2022)