Photographer Garo Keshishyan organizes creative meetings in Varna called “Thankful Thursdays”

The photographer Garo Keshishyan invites every week to creative meetings in Varna, called “Thankful Thursdays”. The people who come are my great friends, shared the host. According to him, Varna is a small place for them, because they dominate international scenes. It is very interesting for him to meet musicians, because he himself does not know musical notation. He was a drummer as a youth in a band that played old hits and dance tunes in pubs for five years, but was a “listener” and then gave up on the stage. He admits that he has always been curious about how music leaves the brain and reaches the fingertips.
Each time, the meeting on Thursday begins with a presentation of the biography of the guest, after which there is an opportunity for a free conversation with him. At the last edition, a part of “the most musical family in Varna”, as the host called them, was a guest. These are maestro Gancho Ganchev, who is the conductor and head of the Varna Children’s and Youth Opera and the Varna Chamber Orchestra, artistic director of the International Choir Competition “Prof. Georgi Dimitrov” and vice-president of the Bulgarian Choral Union, his wife Neli Gancheva and his son Galin Ganchev, who is a concert pianist.
Gancho Ganchev pointed out that such meetings are very interesting because they gather like-minded people and at them one can tell what one cannot in official events – what one feels and perceives from the environment in which one lives and from art. In such a format, things can be admitted that no one has heard, he added. Ganchev shared that he was originally from Dulovo, where he lived freely and freely, playing the guitar at youth gatherings since the sixth grade. He began to seriously engage in music only at the age of 17. He chooses the piano, but admitted that he never fell in love with the instrument enough, and perhaps that is the reason why he turned to conducting as a student. He graduated from the Academy in Plovdiv, where he studied with Ivan Spasov and participated in the student symphony orchestra.
His son Galin Ganchev completed his education in Great Britain, where he left at the age of 14. His guardian on the island is Gareth Jenkins. He launched him into playing charity concerts in front of the local community. At the meeting, the pianist shared some subtleties of the performance technique he was trained in in Great Britain.
Father and son played together twice on the same stage in Varna and visited Shumen with a concert called “Generations”.
Art photography and lawyer Yordan Yordanov is a guest at “Blagodatni Thursdays” with an exhibition. Among the personalities presented so far are the writer and artist Nikolay Savov, the writer Pip Voland, the actor Galin Ginev, the photojournalist Denislav Stoychev, the artist Veselin Nachev.
Tonight the meeting will be with the woodcarver Nikolay Nikolov.