Roots

Tekeliev dated Roots to 1997 and scored it for folk choir and symphony orchestra, one of the combinations that occupied Bulgarian composers of his generation once the open-throated village singing style had entered the concert hall. The piece sits within a substantial body of choral music that also includes Sea Tale of 1987, and it shares with his Symphony-Requiem the idea of setting the folk voice against the symphonic apparatus rather than dissolving it into the orchestra. Tekeliev has taught composition at the Academy of Music in Sofia since 1977.