Alexander Tanev

Law came first — a degree from Sofia University in 1950. He entered the Bulgarian State Conservatoire afterwards, studied composition with Veselin Stoyanov and conducting with Georgi Dimitrov, and graduated in 1957. His catalogue includes choral songs, five cantatas, and three oratorios for soloists, chorus and orchestra — Chronicle of Freedom and The Bequest among them. There are also concertos for piano and for violin, orchestral and chamber music, songs, piano pieces and stage works. He taught composition at the National Academy of Music from 1970 until his death and was dean of the theory, composition and conducting faculty from the mid-1980s. He died in 1996. He worked as the editor of the music publications of the institute for amateur art from 1959 to 1974, conducted the Academic Choir from 1962 to 1969 and was the dean of the theory, composition and conducting faculty from 1985, with an active public role in the building of the Bulgarian amateur choral movement as the secretary of the council for amateur art of the committee for art and culture and a member of the artistic councils and editorial boards of Bulgarian National Television and Radio; born in Budapest on 23 October 1928, he died on 15 April 1996. Among the stage works are the ballets Festival at Tsarevets and Veliki Preslav and the musical drama Gramada, while the instrumental catalogue holds a First Piano Concerto subtitled Divertimento concertante, a second concerto, and Building Music and a Concerto for percussion and wind. He sat on the governing bodies of the Bulgarian Choral Union and of the Union of Bulgarian Composers, and was among those who started the annual survey of new Bulgarian music.