Vratsa Symphony Orchestra

The orchestra of Vratsa serves a town of some fifty thousand under the limestone wall of the Balkan range, and it is the only professional symphonic ensemble in Bulgaria's north-west. It plays a classical and romantic season — Mozart and Brahms are its staple ground — takes soloists from Sofia and from abroad, and does the unglamorous work of keeping orchestral music alive in a region that would otherwise have none. Vesselin Baytchev shaped it over many years as principal conductor. Nayden Todorov made his professional debut with the orchestra in 1993, at Baytchev's invitation, and became its conductor in 1995.