Tonight's final of the 42nd national song contest "Burgas and the Sea" will be held on the stage of the Summer Theater in the seaside city, as officially announced by the municipal administration.
The jury, which will determine the winners, includes exceptional professionals from the music scene: folk singer Neli Rangelova, BTA General Director Kiril Valchev, doctor and musician Loris Manuelyan, composer Petar Aleksiev, and lecturer Adrian Georgiev.
This year's edition will feature twelve performers who will present original songs dedicated to the sea and the city of Burgas. Among them are Vili Ruseva, Victoria Kamencheva, Gergana Velikova, the group "Encompassing Cloud", Hristina Trifonova, Dimitar Lazarov, and others.
The ceremony will be hosted by the established media specialist Dragomir Draganov. The musical program during the judging will be performed by Dimitar Atanasov and Hristo Mladenov, with violinist Anima as a special guest.
The contest program includes songs with different stylistics: from "August" by Vili Ruseva to "We and the Sea" by Lyubomir Dyulgerov. Each musical piece is the result of collaborative work between composers, lyricists, and arrangers.
The history of the forum dates back to July 29, 1973, when it was first held as a concert-contest during the Week of the Sea. Initially named "Song for the Sea, Burgas and its Workers", the contest has gone through different periods and was definitively restored in 1996.
The edition has gained exceptional significance for the Bulgarian music community, as evidenced by interviews with famous Bulgarian performers such as Stefan Diomov, Nedyalko Yordanov, and Toni Dimitrova, published in a special issue of LIK magazine in 2022.
This year's edition continues the rich tradition of the musical forum, which has been presenting the best of Bulgarian song culture related to maritime themes for more than four decades.