"This 34-voice group was featured in that great marketing coup, the Mysterious Voices album (and on the old Nonesuch Music of Bulgaria). It’s a highly structured group and at times its arrangements are to Bulgarian village music as Vaughan Williams is to English…this is a stunning vocal tradition." - ALL MUSIC GUIDE Polyphonic choral music forms an important part of the cultural heritage of Bulgaria. The primary features of this music are its method of vocalization without a trace of vibrato, and the use of discordant harmonies based especially on clashes of minor seconds and major sevenths. This music had remained hidden to the general public until 4AD picked up a recording of various female Bulgarian choirs and released it under the title Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares…Nonesuch grabbed the American rights and the album became a surprise best-seller in the late 1980s. The origins of all of this success spring from the founding, in 1952, of the first Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir by Philip Koutev. Koutev revitalized dying folk traditions, collecting folk tunes and creating complex arrangements for female choirs. This original female choir was the key group participating on the Le Mystère CD. This same choir is part of The Philip Koutev National Folk Ensemble, heard on this rich collection of traditional vocal and instrumental music. The ensemble consists of 120 members, including forty singers, sixty dancers, and twenty instrumentalists, and is a Bulgarian cultural ambassador that frequently tours around the world.