Listening to the Rhodopes

Artist Residency | Iron Curtain to Green Belt

Nico de Transilvania and Ivan Shopov’s residency in the Eastern Rhodopes, Bulgaria

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About the Artists

Nico de Transilvania

Romanian-born music producer and DJ Nico de Transilvania creates work that brings together music, film and community collaboration. Drawing inspiration from traditional songs, field recordings and local storytelling, her practice explores the connections between people, culture and the natural world.

Nico is also the founder of Forests Without Frontiers, a non-profit organisation that supports landscape restoration through creative collaborations with artists and musicians in her native Romania, in Bulgaria and in the UK.

Ivan Shopov

Ivan Shopov is a Bulgarian composer, producer and visual artist whose work brings together traditional Bulgarian folklore and contemporary music. Working across electronic music, jazz, ambient and classical composition, he has built a reputation for creating new interpretations of cultural heritage through sound.

Alongside his music career, Ivan creates visual art, composes for theatre and dance productions, and teaches sound design at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. His practice often combines traditional singing, field recordings and modern production techniques, exploring the connections between culture, memory and place.

About the Residency

The Eastern Rhodopes are a landscape of winding rivers, rugged hills and dramatic cliffs in southern Bulgaria. Known for their rich biodiversity and cultural heritage, the region is home to rare birds, traditional villages and communities whose stories remain closely connected to the land.

Working with the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), Nico de Transilvania and Ivan Shopov travelled to Madzharovo and the surrounding villages to explore the relationship between nature, music and community. Building on ideas first developed through Nico’s earlier residency in the Carpathian Mountains, this residency brought together artists, local choirs, folklore researchers and conservation practitioners to create a new artistic response to the landscape.

Through field recordings, conversations and musical collaborations, the artists set out to discover how the voices of people and place could be brought together into a shared story.

Listening to the landscape

The residency began with listening.

Travelling across the Eastern Rhodopes with BSPB staff and local guides, Nico and Ivan recorded the sounds that shape the landscape. Using hydrophones, Nico captured the movement and lifeof the Arda River beneath the water’s surface. They listened for scops owls after dark, recorded crickets hidden among the grasses and collected the sounds of birds, water and wind.

As they explored the region, they learned about BSPB’s work to protect wildlife and restore habitats, while discovering the stories that connect local communities to these places.

The recordings became more than background sounds. Together, they formed an audio portrait of the Eastern Rhodopes, revealing a landscape alive with movement, memory and connection.

Meeting the voices of the Rhodopes

Much of the residency centred on time spent with local choirs and musicians from Madzharovo, Chernichevo and Krumovgrad, including the choirs Demet, Dunyata and Iglika.

The artists attended rehearsals, recorded performances and spoke with singers about the meaning behind songs that have been passed down through generations. Many reflected relationships with rivers, forests, birds and rural life, revealing how closely local culture remains tied to the landscape.

Among those they worked with were schoolchildren from Madzharovo performing the Eagle Song with their teacher, accordionist Stefan Milev. Other recordings included songs inspired by the Arda River, forests and wildlife of the region.

The choirs offered a living connection to the Eastern Rhodopes’ cultural heritage. Their voices carried stories, memories and traditions that continue to shape community life today.

The artists travelled with a photographer, Murray Ballard, who captured the experience.

Stories carried across generations

Beyond the music, the residency became an opportunity to learn about the people who call the Eastern Rhodopes home.

One of the most memorable moments came during a visit to a choir in the village of Chernichevo. As the artists arrived, they were greeted by one of the singers, who simply said: “Welcome. We are the end of the road.”

The phrase stayed with Ivan. The village sits at the end of a remote mountain road, and many of the singers were elderly women carrying songs and traditions that are increasingly at risk of disappearing. Recording them became one of the most meaningful parts of the residency.

“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.”
Ivan Shopov

“I hope the project encourages people to listen more deeply, to both the natural world and the communities that inhabit it. 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.”
Nico de Transilvania

Exploring heritage, identity and coexistence

Throughout the residency, community members shared stories of migration, changing livelihoods and life in the mountains. Through conversations with local residents and researchers of Bulgarian folklore, Nico and Ivan gained a deeper understanding of the traditions that have shaped the region over centuries.

They were also struck by how Christian and Muslim communities continue to live alongside one another, sharing traditions, celebrations and a strong sense of place. These stories revealed a landscape where cultural identity is rooted not only in history, but also in relationships between people and their environment.

Wings Over Mountains

As recordings accumulated, Nico and Ivan began shaping them into a collaborative artistic work.

Traditional singing was woven together with recordings from the Arda River, bird calls and other sounds gathered throughout the residency. The resulting piece brings together contemporary music production, field recording and cultural heritage, creating a dialogue between human voices and the wider soundscape of the Eastern Rhodopes.

Drawing together the voices of choirs, local musicians, rivers, birds and communities, Wings Over Mountains offers a portrait of a landscape where culture and nature continue to shape one another.

Alongside the music, the project includes film and field recordings gathered during the residency, creating an immersive experience of the Eastern Rhodopes and the communities who call it home. The film was photographed by Murray Ballard, edited by Vasil Dzhagalov, with music produced by Abstract Source.

Download and stream ‘Wings Over Mountains’ on Spotify.