Vivaldi Metal Project photoLately, Vivaldi Metal Project is gaining more and more popularity not just because of the idea to create metal opera based on Vivaldi, but also due the fact that the incredible producer Maestro Mistheria (Italy) managed to gather and unite behind a common idea the most talented and capable musicians on this planet, such as:

Rick Wakeman (YES), Mark Boals (Y. Malmsteen), Rob Rock (Impellitteri), Edu Falaschi (Angra / Almah), Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation), Rolf Pilve (Stratovarius), Michael Lepond (SymphonyX), John Macaluso ( ARK / TNT), Mark Cross (Scorpions / Firewind), Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork), Chris Caffery (Savatage), Fabio Lione (Rhapsody of Fire / Angra), Dani Loeble (Helloween), Victor Smolski (Rage / Almanac), Marco Sfogli (J. LaBrie), Mark Wood (Trans-Siberian Orchestra), Andreas Passmark (Royal Hunt), Steve Di Giorgio (Testament), Anna Portalupi (Tarja), Atma Anur (T. MacAlpine / G. Howe), Tommy Denander (Radioactive / Toto), I have to mention that the total number of musicians involved in this project exceeds 70 and each of them deserves special attention.

It was well expected that when a project is created by virtuosos and talents we can expect a good number of Bulgarian participants and they are:

Zhivko Koev – Composer, Arranger  and  Kapellmeister at Vivaldi Metal Project (Allegorist, Pagliacci)

Katerina Simeonova – vocals at Vivaldi Metal Project (Allegorist, Pagliacci)

Tsena Kercheva – vocals at Vivaldi Metal Project

Maria Diez – vocals at Vivaldi Metal Project (Rampart)

Alexandra Zerner – guitarist atVivaldi Metal Project

The project also involved Academic Choir „Angel Manolov“ (Bulgaria) conducted by Darena Popova.

I am very pleased to introduce three of the participants, extremely talented Katya, Zhivko and Mitko and to invite them to tell us about this huge project they became part of and also, to share some future projects and surprises related to this and other side projects. As usual, the conversation with them was very interesting and entertaining, not to mention that every time I talk to them, I learn new things about the process of creating of high quality music, and there are always some secrets and surprises which for our wonderful audience pop-up in this conversations.

The interview will be released in two parts. You can read part one below.

 

Hello, nice to talk to you again. Vivaldi Metal Project is already well known to our audience, but could you tell us in a few words about its participants and overall organization. The project involved other Bulgarians as well – Tsena Kercheva and Maria Diez from Rampart (the participation of Bulgarian guitarist Alexandra Zerner was also announced after conducting this interview ). How you got in touch with Mistheria and how you ended as participants in this huge project?

Zhivko Koev; Photographer: Simeon Chengelski

Zhivko: The project is organized by two Italians, Maestro Mistheria and Alberto Rigoni. The other Bulgarian participants in the project are Academic Choir „Angel Manolov“ ,  Tsena Kercheva and Maria Diez, which we know indirectly. I learned about the project from one of the Bulgarian sites for metal news. There was news that Maria Diez will participate in a project and decided to check it. It looked interesting to me and I checked Vivaldi Metal Project  web-site There was an announcement for a competition for an arrangement which I was very interested to participate. It was really close to the deadline and did what I could to make arrangement on the part announced for competition, which was „Spring“ Part 2. The requirements were the arrangement to be very epic and powerful, with many metal and choirs, but in fact this part of the „Spring“ is far from epic or powerful, so I tried to make it as good as possible. Mitko (Dimitar Belchev, author’s note) helped a lot. At the stage when I was looking to record some demo vocals arrangement, he was in Sofia, Bulgaria. I had no intention to harass him to record demo vocals, which is far from his class, but he told me that he wants to record something, anything. I told him that the only records I have at the moment was one demo for this project and he was very interested and enjoyed the opportunity to record for the project, and so we recorded the vocals. My arrangement won the competition and few days later Mistheria wrote to me with the question „Who is this singer who participated in the demo?“ And I told him that he is Dimitar Belchev, more about him and his band (ViolentorY) and he said „Talk to him, I want him to participate the project.“ Later he told me in more details how he and Alberto were impressed a lot of his singing. He sent the arrangement of Alberto and he responded, „Well, let arrangement aside, listen to the vocals, you need to find this man,“ and so Mitko was invited to participate. Later, there was a second competition for which I asked if I can participate again and the answer was “Yes”, so I send arrangement and I won again. As Dimitar was not in Sofia anymore, I asked Katya (Katerina Simeonova, Pagliacci author’s note) to do the vocals for the demo. Then Mistheria wrote: „Who sings these vocals? Well write to her to participate.“ And afterwards, there was a third competition, and I wondered if he could still participate and Mistheria replied „Not anymore, we have two parts more for arranging, so just choose directly one and we will do not include it in the competition as if you will make it, you will win anyway. “

Major figure in this project is the Italian virtuoso pianist, organist and keybordist Giuseppe Yampier, known as the Maestro Mistheria. You met him in Bulgaria during the recordings sessions with Bulgarian Academic Choir „Angel Manolov“. What are your impressions of the work process of Maestro Mistheria?

Zhivko: I can share my impressions of Mistheria and Roberto Scarpa Meylougan, sound engineer and organist who works at Universal. Mistheria insisted Roberto to organize the recording sessions and I am very impressed by their professional level. I have worked with many different musicians, but I was really impressed with them, the way they work, how they created miracles with a few chairs and pillows and achieve best level of acoustic in this room… Both have exceptional sense for music and it is a pleasure to work with such professionals, same applies to Darena Popova, the conductor of the choir „Angel Manolov“, also outstanding professional at world level.

Katerina Simeonova

 

Katya: I personally did not attended the recording sessions, but I had the opportunity to spend one day and the evenings with Maestro Mistheria and Roberto and I can say that they are very natural people, really nice and friendly, with great sense of humour, far from arrogance and glorification, they just start doing their best to develop high quality stuff. They just work quietly and modestly, and finally have great results. I like the fact that they accept us as their colleagues, although they have a much bigger achievements.

Zhivko: I just would like to mention that one of the things I most like about Mistheria character is that he is super keen, enthusiastic and inspired in what he does. For example, he heard the recording sessions from rehearsals which I did before they arrived for the recording sessions, he fell into ecstasy … And everything related to him is like this – super enthusiastic and that is why it is such a fun to work with him because everyone wants to work with someone who does things with inspiration and desire. Working with Dimitar is very similar experience.

You’ll tell you story, something interesting from that day?

Zhivko: The interesting part started the first day before the recording sessions, when they arrived. We took them to a restaurant and ordered for Mistheria Czech beer, which made him dizzy. So, we got Mistheria drunk in his very first hour in Sofia 🙂 Finally it turned out that beer was 10.5%, which is much more than the standard beer. He was tired after all day driving and he said – this beer is very strong, and we laughed that he got drunk by just one beer and  … So we got him drunk immediately after he arrived. I don’t remember the name of this beer, but it was something like „… ator“ in the end and he called it beer „Terminator.“ And as of today, when we talk, he says that when we are ready with the album we will get each one beer „Terminator.“

The musicians involved in this project are really huge names like Rick Wakeman (YES), Michael Lepond (Symphony X), Chris Caffery (Trans-Siberian Orchestra / Savatage), Fabio Lione (Rhapsody of Fire / Angra), Rob Rock ( Impellitteri), Dani Loeble (Helloween) and of course the maestro himself Mistheria. Are there any of them that you feel have influenced your development and what you would like to continue on other projects?

Violentory

Dimitar Belchev

Mitko: Firstly, I like very much Fabio Lione as a singer and I listen to him since 2001 – 2002 year perhaps, and I always admired Rhapsody. Rhapsody inspired me a lot and now, after this series of events, when it turned out that we are in one and the same project with him, it was a huge honour to me. And of course, Mark Boals, when I read that Mark Boals, the man who has albums with Yngwie Malmsteen, and whose voice greatly impressed me from the first song, participate in the same project as me, I just became speechless. I still cannot believe that we will be present on one and the same CD. Another interesting fact is that if you omit the names of famous artists, there are many young artists who are not as famous, same as myself, and, at the same time, they are very good musicians. Along with their demos and other presentation materials on the site of Vivaldi Metal Project, I heard great musicians and singers, in particular that I really like. In addition, the bands of majority of the participating musicians are really my favorite bands. There are musicians and Kamelot, from Symphony X, which is great. Zhivko enjoys very much the presence of Rick Wakeman.

Zhivko: True, YES is one of my favourite bands ever, YES is one of the first, most classic prog rock bands. I was also was very pleased when I saw Chris Caffery of Savatage, a band that I used to listen a lot in my school years. Furthermore, Chris Caffery played solo in one of the songs with my arrangement (with Mitko’s vocals) and made an amazingly cool solo. Many of those bands influenced us in some way along.

Mitko and Katya, you already recorded your songs for Vivaldi Metal Project. If it is no secret part of which seasons are they, do you know who are the other artists participating these pieces? Were there any challenges and what were they?

Zhivko: Dimitar sings the second part of Spring and he is also involved in one of the songs of Mistheria. There is a song in the beginning and one at the end as intro and outro, which are written by Mistheria. Mitko participates in the outro and Katya sings in the third part of Winter, the last song before the outro.

Katya: Overall I am very happy because this is the song for which I did the demo for and Mistheria liked very much how I perform and he left me on it – just gave me lyrics. In this song participate also Wade Black and Tsena Kercheva. I am pleased with the vocals, but it will be a great challenge to mix it – so many different voices, however I think it’s a good combination.

The challenge was that I already had recordings of Wade’s vocal party and had to be very careful to avoid too strong contrast, but I hope we achieved it.

Mitko: In the beginning when we made the demo vocals for Spring, everything was very easy and enjoyable, and the challenge came with the lyrics because the party is quite high – just the song itself is a challenge for me.

Zhivko: I would say that Mitko created a challenge for the other vocalist, Csaba Zvekan (Exorcism). Mistheria sent the demo we recorded with Mitko, and he said: „But what should I sing here, this Dimitar sung it all so cool.“ And Mistheria told him – You will shout and sing and we will do it super cool and he did so, he was super cool.

Maestro Mistheria has entrusted the arrangement to very limited number of composers and Zhivko, you’re one of them. It is not your first time working on  symphonic metal projects. How is this different? For which parts of the project you made the arrangements for?

Mitko: They give him a lot of money 😀

Zhivko: Yes, we did stuff influenced by classical music like Allegorist, but here we have a producer – Mistheria, who is taking the decisions how everything should sound. I’ve never worked this way – with someone who says what must be done and to follow someone else’s requirements. The songs would not sound this way, if I had written it myself and I think that was a challenge for me.

In this regards, did you know in advance which musicians will participate in the parts with your arrangement? Was your work influenced by their skills and abilities?

Zhivko: Unfortunately – no. In fact, when I work with someone always want to comply with their abilities and to take advantage of their strengths, but in this project, this is the job of the producer, Mistheria. He is the man who chooses the right musicians for the part and does a very good job at that. Only choral parties ware arranged according to the range of each of the voices, which is different for each choir – depending on the singers available in that choir. Here Darena Popova – conductor of the choir did an incredible work. Again I want to say, she is a great professional, a great choir, the Italians were extremely impressed by them. The fact that they came to Bulgaria to work exactly with this choir, tells a lot itself.

 

The second part of the interview is coming soon with new information about Vivaldi Metal Project and a lot of interesting news about other projects too.