Christmas magic with "The Radio Children" and children's favourite songs

The magic of Christmas will be brought by the Radiodetsa vocal group at its Christmas matinee on Saturday December 14 at 11am in Studio 1 of Bulgarian National Radio.

The children will perform popular Christmas songs. The concert will be conducted by Ilina Todorova and hosted by Gergana Tsakova.

In addition to the popular melodies, the concert will include two children's songs from more than a century ago. Their inclusion in the repertoire of the Radio Children's Choir has a very interesting history, connected with the sister of the Bulgarian poet Geo Milev - Penka Kasabova, who was the director of the American Kindergarten in Sofia in the 1930s.

During her visit to Bulgarian National Radio in 1990, Penka Kasabova sang these songs, based on her own memories, to her colleagues in the children's department of the public broadcaster. Dorothea Petrova, then a producer at Detska Redakcija, recorded the songs and asked Stefan Ribarov to make the first arrangements. This year, at the invitation of current producer Desislava Kostantinova, double bass player Dimitar Sirakov, who has worked with Radiodetza for many years, created new, contemporary arrangements. These were realised as new recordings at the beginning of 2024. It is in these new arrangements that we will hear the songs at Saturday's concert.

We will be hearing one of them - the song Santa Didn't Sleep All Night: