Egyptian and Bulgarian Music Fusion: Poetic Trio Live at TaM Through the Lens of E-volution Media
July 9, 2026 - Music
On May 20 and 21, 2026, the cultural space TaM in Veliko Tarnovo hosted Poetic Trio — an international music and poetry project bringing together sound, spoken word and live improvisation. The concert was announced as a free-entry event and presented as a meeting point between poetry, music and improvisation, creating space for an intimate artistic experience in one of Veliko Tarnovo’s most recognizable independent cultural venues.
For E-volution Media, this was exactly the kind of event we want to capture and share: a live moment where cultures, languages and artistic forms meet naturally. Our volunteers attended the concert not only as viewers, but as young media creators — documenting the performance, the atmosphere of the venue and the sense of connection between musicians and audience.
Poetic Trio brings together three artists from different cultural and musical backgrounds: Gabriela Hadzhikostova — vocals and artistic speech, Nikolay Ivanov OM — keyboards, guitar and compositions, and Mohamed Azima — oud, guitar and vocals. The project has been described as a performance “on the border between music, text and improvisation,” where poetry and sound are not separate elements, but parts of one shared artistic language.
The concert created a dialogue between Bulgarian and Egyptian musical sensibilities. The sound of the oud — one of the most recognizable instruments in Middle Eastern musical traditions — met Bulgarian melodic lines, atmospheric keyboard and guitar textures, and spoken poetry. The result was not a simple “fusion” in the commercial sense of the word, but a sensitive conversation between traditions, voices and emotions.
What made the performance especially powerful was the way poetry became part of the music. According to information published about the project, texts by authors such as Hristo Fotev, Naguib Mahfouz, Maria Doneva, Nikola Vaptsarov and others are woven into the concert program. This gives Poetic Trio a literary depth: the audience does not only hear melodies, but also encounters words, images and fragments of memory from different cultural worlds.
The choice of TaM as a venue also shaped the feeling of the evening. TaM is known in Veliko Tarnovo as a space for contemporary culture, independent events, meetings, discussions and artistic experiments. In this setting, the concert felt close to the audience — not distant or formal, but direct, warm and human. The music filled the space without losing its intimacy, and the audience became part of the experience rather than just observers.
Through the camera of E-volution Media, the concert was documented as a living moment. The goal of the video was not to create a
polished stage recording, but to preserve the atmosphere as it was: the light, the sound, the silence between pieces, the concentration of the musicians, the reactions of the audience and the feeling of being present in a shared cultural encounter.
This video was created by international volunteers involved in the media activities of E-volution Media. Their work is part of a broader learning process: discovering local cultural life, meeting artists and communities, and developing skills in filming, editing, interviewing and storytelling. Through such materials, young people become not only participants in European volunteering projects, but also active documentarians of the cultural and social life around them.
The concert of Poetic Trio at TaM reminded us that culture often happens in small, intense moments — in a room where people listen carefully, in the meeting between different instruments, in a poem spoken across languages, in the curiosity of young people behind the camera.
Watch the video: https://e-volution.media/release/egyptian-bulgarian-music-fusion/