“Hello, welcome. We are the end of the road.”
The greeting came from a member of the choir in the village of Chernichevo as musicians Ivan Shopov and Nico de Transilvania stepped inside to meet them. The words stayed with Ivan throughout the residency.
“The road doesn’t go any further,” he recalls. “They are literally at the end of the road, and they were all older women carrying these songs and traditions. They have nobody to pass on this knowledge, so it was both sad and rewarding that we were able to record them.”
For Ivan, the moment captured something far bigger than one village. It reflected the fragile relationship between landscapes, communities and traditions, all of which can be lost if they are no longer cared for.
That idea became the thread running through the artists’ residency with the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), part of the Iron Curtain to Green Belt restoration project supported by the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme. While BSPB is restoring forests, grasslands and wetlands across Southeast Bulgaria to reconnect habitats for species including the eastern imperial eagle and Egyptian vulture, the residency explored another dimension of restoration: how healthy landscapes continue to support the stories, songs and cultural traditions that have evolved alongside them.
Learning to listen
For Nico, the residency grew from an earlier project in Romania called I N T E R B E I N G, which explored the relationship between music, communities and landscape.
“The residency emerged as a continuation of my previous project, I N T E R B E I N G, which was developed in Romania with support from the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme,” she explains. “After seeing how powerful that model was in bringing together artists, local communities and conservation practitioners, I wanted to explore whether a similar approach could be adapted to another ecologically and culturally rich, yet endangered landscape.”
Before returning to the Eastern Rhodopes, Nico had already visited the area once.
“I absolutely fell in love with the area,” she says. “I was blown away by the biodiversity there and loved the culture, which I thought had a lot of similarities with my own heritage. I was excited to go back to find out more about the traditions and songs, and collaborate with Ivan to help tell the story of this landscape and the people that live there.”
Rather than arriving with a finished composition, the pair spent their first days listening. Together with BSPB staff, local residents and folklore researchers, they recorded the Arda River using hydrophones, listened for scops owls after dark, captured birdsong and insects, and visited communities across the Eastern Rhodopes.
“At the heart of the residency was the idea of listening, to the landscape, to its people and to its traditions,” says Nico. “There were many stories shared about this magnificent place, and the songs were inspired by nature and people’s connection to it.”
Ivan was equally fascinated by what local music could reveal.
“I was really curious about working with local choirs and their unique voices,” he says. “Mixed with the sounds of the area, they make it possible for the listener to imagine a piece of this land.”
Where restoration and culture meet
Over the following week, the artists met the choirs Demet, Dunyata and Iglika, recorded performances and spent time learning about the stories behind the songs. They also met schoolchildren from Madzharovo performing the Eagle Song with their teacher, accordionist Stefan Milev.
For Nico, these encounters demonstrated that culture and biodiversity are closely connected.
“The choirs brought a living connection to the region’s cultural memory. Through rehearsals, conversations and recording sessions, we explored how traditional songs could interact with contemporary sound design and field recordings. This created a dialogue between human voices and the wider soundscape of the landscape.”
Ivan found himself equally moved by the communities behind the music.
“I learned a lot about the local customs and traditions. I was especially impressed by how Christian and Muslim traditions intertwine within the community and how people live together in peace and harmony, respecting each other’s stories.”
The experience also changed how both artists thought about restoration.
“The residency reinforced my belief that people and nature are not separate,” says Nico. “Cultural expression, whether through song, storytelling or ritual, often emerges directly from a community’s relationship with its environment. When landscapes are protected, the cultural practices connected to them are also given space to survive and evolve.”
Ivan reached a similar conclusion through music.
“The voices of the local people are like strings of a musical instrument that is being played by the landscape and nature. Our mission is to amplify those voices and make more people feel nature through the music and hearts of those singers.”
A new way of experiencing restoration
As recordings accumulated, Nico and Ivan gradually transformed them into Wings Over Mountains, weaving together traditional singing with birdsong, flowing water and environmental recordings collected across the Eastern Rhodopes.
“Being in Madzharovo together for the first time and seeing a cinereous vulture was pretty amazing,” Nico says. “I loved spending time with the choirs. They were so open-hearted, and I feel so grateful they wanted to share their music and their songs. I’m feeling emotional just talking about it because we had such nice moments there.”
For both artists, the project became more than a musical collaboration. It offered another way of understanding the work of restoration.
“I hope the project encourages people to listen more deeply, both to the natural world and to the communities that inhabit it,” says Nico. “By bringing together sound, music and storytelling, I want audiences to experience the landscape as a living, interconnected system where ecology and culture are inseparable.”
Ivan hopes the residency will continue to inspire both audiences and artists.
“I hope this residency will resonate with more people over time and become part of a bigger movement of artists willing to collaborate with organisations like BSPB. Being part of projects like this can change not only local people, but also the artists themselves, introducing them to landscapes, traditions and experiences they might never otherwise encounter.”
Wings Over Mountains invites listeners to experience the Eastern Rhodopes through the sounds of its rivers, wildlife and communities. Alongside BSPB’s restoration work, it offers another perspective on what it means to care for a landscape: not only by restoring habitats, but by celebrating the people and traditions that continue to give those places their voice.
To find out more about the residency, visit the project page. Download and stream ‘Wings Over Mountains’ on Spotify.
