Божидар Абрашев

Bozhidar Abrashev conducted the Filip Kutev State Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances from 1963 to 1966. Born in Sofia in 1936, he had graduated in composition from the State Academy of Music in 1960, with Pancho Vladigerov; he returned to the academy as a teacher, became a professor, took a doctorate in art history in 1991 and served as vice-rector. Instrumentation, orchestration and theory were his subjects, and he published on them. The catalogue that stands to his name — some sixty works — runs from symphonies and concertante pieces through chamber and choral music to oratorio and a large body of folk-song arrangement. He held the Order of SS Cyril and Methodius, and between 2001 and 2005 he was Bulgaria's Minister of Culture. He died in 2006. He conducted the state ensemble of folk songs and dances, taught symphonic orchestration and instrumentation at the State Academy of Music, part-time from 1964 and on the staff from 1966, became a professor and served as deputy rector from 1999 to 2001, and taught composition, musical analysis and elementary theory also at the Plovdiv academy, the Konstantin Preslavski University in Shumen, Sofia University and the South-West University in Blagoevgrad, and from 1990 he was a member of the expert council on music of the Ministry of Culture. His folklore work extends to around three hundred arrangements of traditional songs and instrumental melodies, alongside orchestrations of some twenty works by other composers. The catalogue includes five symphonies and two oratorios, and he published monographs and research articles.