Marin Goleminov

Marin Goleminov composed Nestinarka, a dance drama drawn from the Strandzha fire-dancing ritual. He trained as a musician, graduating from the State Academy of Music in Sofia and continuing in Paris at the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique, with courses at the Sorbonne and further study in Munich. From 1943 he taught orchestration, conducting and composition at the Academy for decades, and he directed the National Opera in the 1960s. His works include the opera Ivaylo, string quartets, symphonic works and a large body of choral and chamber music. He was awarded the Herder Prize in 1976 and elected to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1989, and a point on the Antarctic coast carries his name. Born in Kyustendil in 1908, he died in 2000. He graduated from the State Academy of Music in 1931, studying violin with Todor Torchanov and theory with Dobri Hristov and Nikola Atanasov, and from 1931 to 1934 studied at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, composition with Vincent d'Indy, Paul Le Flem and Albert Bertelin, attending Paul Dukas's composition lectures at the École Normale de Musique; a representative of the so-called second generation of Bulgarian composers, he was born in Kyustendil on 28 September 1908 and died on 19 February 2000. Nestinarka reached the stage in 1942, and Plamen Djurov, Emil Tabakov and Georgi Mintchev came out of his composition class; he was for a time rector of the academy in Sofia and a holder of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Dobrin Petkov conducted the suite from Nestinarka, the Second Symphony and the Violin Concerto with Boyan Lechev as soloist, and in 1989 Goleminov wrote a Lamento in his memory.