Nora Doncheva
"Who is Nora?"
article by Paul Alloca - New York collumnist
When you first hear the music of NYC singer Nora Doncheva, you know that there’s something different happening, but you can’t exactly place your finger on it. Her four-octave range soars over dance beats, but the music has a deeper and more soulful edge. Hypnotic, foreign sounds swirl over the music –but never detract from her voice, or the groove. Nora’s music is different for a reason: she grew up in Bulgaria, writes, arranges and engineers her music and is conservatory-trained.
Growing up in Bulgaria, Nora was influenced by her native land’s folk music – and the soul and dance sounds of America. After high school, she entered the Bulgarian National Academy, which led to an MA in Vocal Performance. While at college, Nora won a national contest for new artists –gaining TV exposure and a record deal. Just 18, her first single hit #3. By age 20, she had appeared on 20 TV shows, made 5 videos and toured Bulgaria. Later that year she won Best New Artist at the "Golden Orpheus" International Pop Music Festival. Nora gained notoriety for more than her voice: her videos showcased her hip-hop choreography, something new to Eastern Europe. Nora credits all her early success to Dimitar Kovatchev, her first agent, songwriter and overall mentor: together, they were the first to bring hip-hop and funk to a country the size of Massachusetts.
Restless to grow artistically, after college, Nora left for Vienna, Austria. She performed in Vienna’s biggest dance clubs and spun records at the city’s hippest lounges, including downtown’s Bora-Bora. Here, she was noticed by Falco’s producer Robert Vayner ("Rock me, Amadeus”) and was offered a record deal. She passed, instead accepting a scholarship at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. At Berkee, she had the chance to realize a lifelong dream: living, studying and performing in the U.S.
However, Berklee’s curriculum began repeating what she had learned in Bulgaria and Boston, a smaller, conservative city had a limited dance music scene. Soon, Nora jumped at the chance to relocate to NYC.
New to NYC, Nora was offered a collaboration deal to record an album with “Soularis”, a trance duo. She accepted and produced and recorded all her vocals herself. The boys knew they had found someone with potential. The group performed at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, gaining Nora many industry contacts and huge popularity on the U.S. dance music scene. The monthly European entertainment paper Night Owl ran a cover story on Nora titled, “There aren’t too many women like her.” American audiences were beginning to agree. In late 2002, Nora’s first solo release, “Fever”, won 2nd Place in Billboard’s New Talent Contest for the Dance Music Summit.
With her newfound U.S. success, Nora began to focus on a lifelong dream, completing a solo full-length CD of her own music (mostly recorded at Nora’s own studio, E-Turn-L Records.) Nora is performing live in support of her new CD, packing venues in New York like The Bitter End, Au Bar, Orange Bear, Soul Café, and Joe's Pub - THE BEST of the smaller concert stages in Manhattan.
For Nora, “I’m a firm believer that a true artist can’t stand still and must add other dimensions in order to grow.” She hopes to take her audiences along with her on these transformations, “When you give all your energy to the crowd and you witness the immediate return effect in their happy faces and see their bodies groove under your music –everything about them changing for the positive – that is a miracle.”
A true artist, Nora is not settling for familiar territory, but rather, creating exotic, fresh American pop music.