Vasil Kazandjiev

Trumpet study came before composition. Born at Marten near Rousse in 1934, Vasil Kazandjiev entered the Bulgarian State Conservatory as a brass player and left it with a composition diploma from Pancho Vladigerov's class and a conducting diploma from Vladi Simeonov's — a double formation audible in the exactness with which he scores. Symphonies of Timbres, Pictures from Bulgaria and Illuminations placed him among the leading Bulgarian composers of the 1960s: works in which colour and texture carry the argument, aleatory passages are held inside a firm sense of direction, and folk material enters as rhythm and modal tension rather than as quotation. He conducted at the Sofia Opera from 1957 to 1964, founded the chamber ensemble known as the Sofia Soloists in 1962 and directed it until 1978, and was chief conductor of the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1993 — a post through which a great deal of new Bulgarian music reached its first performance and its first recording. He taught orchestral conducting at the National Music Academy in Sofia from 1986 to 2002. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 2005 and a full academician in 2009. There were film scores too — Tobacco, Shibil, The Master of Boyana — inside a catalogue that reached some 124 opus numbers. He died in 2026. Konstantin Iliev and Dobrin Petkov were his first teachers in composition and conducting, and in 1957 his Symphonietta for large orchestra made him a laureate at the International Youth Festival in Moscow, where Shostakovich chaired the jury. Eight symphonies, nine string quartets, a piano quintet and a Symphony Concertante for saxophone, piano and orchestra stand alongside Living Icons and Apocalypse in the catalogue, recorded by Balkanton, Harmonia Mundi and the Japanese label Kibaton as well as by Bulgarian Radio. In 2015 he received the St Paisius of Hilendar state prize.