Dimitar Sagaev

More than twenty instrumental concertos sit inside Dimitar Sagaev's catalogue, alongside operas, symphonies, cantatas, chamber and piano music and songs. Born in Plovdiv in 1915 into the household of the writer and theatre educator Konstantin Sagaev, he studied piano first with Asen Dimitrov and then with Dimitar Nenov, and took his diploma from the academy in Sofia, having worked at composition with Pancho Vladigerov, orchestration with Veselin Stoyanov and piano with Panka Pelishek. He taught for many years at the National Academy of Music, and died in Sofia in 2003. He first taught music at the Plovdiv boys' gymnasium in 1941–42, was a military conductor from 1943 to 1946, headed the art music department of Radio Sofia from 1946 to 1949, conducted the representative wind orchestra of the ministry of the interior from 1949 to 1953 and headed the music and opera theatres department of the Ministry of Culture from 1952 to 1955, while from 1948 he began his teaching at the State Academy of Music, where he was for many years professor of symphonic orchestration; he died on 28 October 2003. The academy made him a doctor honoris causa. His music also travelled: Dina Schneidermann played the Second Violin Concerto with the Dresden Philharmonic under Kurt Masur, and the French Parrenin ensemble took up the Second String Quartet. In 2003 he received the Golden Age distinction from the Ministry of Culture.