Valya Mladenova Balkanska (born January 8, 1942) is a Bulgarian folk music singer. She is most famous for performing the song Izlel je Delyo hajdutin, which was sent to space on board the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes in 1977.
Valya Balkanska was born in a hamlet consisting of seven houses near the village of Arda in the Rhodope Mountains. Since her childhood years she has been singing Rhodopean folk songs, which she learned from her mother and grandmother, as well as at work-bee parties. In 1960 she became the main soloist of the Rhodopa State Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances. She was only 18 years old at that time. Up to this day Balkanska has performed more than 300 folk songs, having been accompanied by the bagpipe player Petar Yanev for the last 14 years.
The most important moment in Balkanska's career came with the folk song Izlel je Delyo hajdutin, which she recorded together with the bagpiper Dimitar Petkovski. In 1972 it became part of the Voyager Golden Record, a collection of songs, sounds and images from our planet, which also contains works of famous composers such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. NASA put copies of the record in the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes and launched them on August 20, 1977. According to Carl Sagan, one of the creators of the Voyager Golden Record, only advanced alien civilizations would be able to play it.
In 2004 Balkanska released an album called Glas ot vechnostta (Voice from the Eternity), comprising some of her most popular songs such as A bre yunache ludo i mlado, Goro le goro zelena, and Maychinko stara maychinko.