Gabrovo Chamber Orchestra

Founded in the autumn of 1969 by the composer Hristo Pitev together with a group of recent conservatoire graduates, the Gabrovo Chamber Orchestra has been maintained ever since by its municipality. Milko Kolarov directed it from 1974 to 1990, Ivan Stoyanov from 1992. Its working repertoire runs to some nine hundred pieces spanning four centuries, with a particular care for baroque playing and for Slavonic composers; Bach's keyboard concertos and Mozart's divertimenti are among the works it has played. The orchestra travels to Varna Summer, to the Plovdiv chamber music festival and to Apollonia in Sozopol, and it keeps a festival of its own — the Days of Chamber Music, held in Gabrovo each September.