Re: wedding music

[Carol Freeman <tsipra...>]

Heschel3 (at) aol(dot)com wrote:

> My wedding is July 1, 2001, and I'm still looking for music to play before
> the ceremony, and immediately following the ceremony.  I'm looking for very
> ethic pieces, and not necessarily Jewish (but predominantly).  I recently
> bought Voices of Life by the Bulgarian Women's Choir-Angelite, and I plan on
> using a few songs off of that, but I was wondering if anyone knows how I can
> get translations of some of the lyrics?

Probably will be able to help you on getting these translations. What songs are
you using? The texts (and consequently, the translations), to songs commonly
sung by Bulgarian choirs are readily available. But point of information - you
said you are planning to use "very ethnic music" - these choral arrangements are
really just extremely Westernized arrangements of barely recognizable Bulgarian
texts and melodies. In the early choirs, the singers at least came out of the
village and were encouraged to do fieldwork throughout their careers, even if
the arrangements did not really take advantage of their knowledge or vocal
integrity. However, the singers in Angelite are conservatory trained and have
little clue as to how "ethnic" Bulgarian song should sound. So its ethnicity is
in question. (But, of course,  that doesn't mean that it won't be beautiful for
you wedding. Just not truly "ethnic.")

Good luck!CF

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