Tchonev is a co-founder of Songs of Life, which is performing “A Melancholy Beauty,” a show about the rescue of Jews in Bulgaria during the Holocaust, at the Kennedy Center on Tuesday. What is Songs of Life?
Songs of Life is a festival my husband and I started in November 2008. I’m a descendant of two Bulgarian Jews who were rescued during the Holocaust. My husband is a Bulgarian musician. Something we do for a living is do performing tours in the United States. … It is right for us to start a festival that would share the message of the rescue and how it happened. … This is a great way to bring to multitudes a story that is largely unknown. How do you bring this to people? You can write a book, but a lot of people don’t read books anymore. … An oratorial is almost like an opera, where you have a full cast and a narrator.
