Krasimir Taskov

A pianist who took his composition diploma three years after his piano diploma, Krasimir Taskov has worked as both a pianist and a composer. Born in Sofia in 1955, he trained at the State Academy of Music, graduating in piano in 1981 and in composition in 1984; his teachers were Julia and Konstantin Ganev for piano and Pencho Stoyanov for composition. As a student he took prizes at international piano competitions in Moscow and in Spain. Seminars in Bulgaria and the Netherlands brought him into contact with Ton de Leeuw, Theo Loevendie, Anatol Vieru and Andrei Eshpai. His catalogue holds concertos for violin, oboe, clarinet and piano, orchestral, chamber and piano works, including Archaic Pictures, Moments Musicaux, Introduction and Passacaglia, Capriccio and the Transfigurations series. He became head of the composition department at the National Academy of Music in 1999 and was made professor in 2002. He has attended many times the composition courses of Ton de Leeuw and Theo Loevendie in the Netherlands and of Anatol Vieru in Romania, became professor of composition in 2002 and head of the composition department of the National Academy of Music in 1999, gives solo and chamber concerts as a pianist at home and abroad and holds national and international prizes from the piano competitions of Santander in 1978 and the Tchaikovsky in Moscow in 1978. Archaic Pictures was among the works recommended by the International Composers' Rostrum of UNESCO in Paris in 1984, and the composition competition in Tokyo gave awards to his Fantasia of 1991, the Triptych for two pianos of 1995, Mutuality of 1999 and Dithyrambs of 2002. The clarinet concerto took first prize at the Rhapsody in 7/8 competition in 2002, and the following year Transfiguration II for two pianos was performed at the World Music Days in Slovenia. His scores have been published in Bulgaria, France and Russia.