In about the end of the summer, during my stay with family in the village Daskot in Bulgaria, I made a lot of walks into the hills. There I found a certain type of reed or cane growing in the fields. From one of these reeds I made a flute.
When I heard we would visit a very old cave in the same region I decided to take it with me. I ended up playing for my family in what is referred to as the Concert Hall of the Bacho Kiro cave.
The Bacho Kiro cave is located close to the Dryanovo Monastery. It was formed initially in the Paleogene period, between 66 and 23 million years ago. Over thousands of years it has been shaped and taken amazing forms. Since it was first inhabited for over 40.000 years ago, different humans and animals have lived there over time. And the oldest remains, in the Balkan peninsula, of a cave bear were found there.
In terms of the relation between sound-space-perceiver it is historically a very interesting space. The functionality given to this specific part of the cave indicates the importance of music in daily life and that performance took place in the homes of humans. It also shows that humans were very much aware about the acoustic qualities of spaces, how it effects a sound source and the perception of it.
I can imagine that inhabitants would pick a certain space in a cave for its specific acoustic quality and determine by there own choice of aesthetics what instrument worked best in that space.I would say that these Concert Halls can be considered the predecessors of any type of architectural designed structure build for music performance.
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