Professor Georgi Kostov: Never forget Bulgaria - small country, yet with rich spirit and folklore

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Renowned Bulgarian composer and public figure Georgi Kostov treats his numerous music fans and his students with an author’s concert dedicated to his 75th birth anniversary. Georgi Kostov has devoted most of his life to music. He was lucky to study in the classes of Bulgaria’s great musician Pancho Wladigeroff and he continues his enlightening deed. Georgi Kostov has been for many years rector of the National Music Academy. He paid tribute to his celebrated teacher and named the music academy after Pancho Wladigeroff. Georgi Kostov started lecturing at the National Music Academy back in 1966. In 1985 he became a Professor in Harmony and Composition. From 1989 until 2008 he worked as a chancellor of the Music Academy. Georgi Kostov also served as Minister of Culture between 1995 and 1996. He is a laureate of the highest state order in Bulgaria - Stara Planina. On January 21, 2016 he received the prestigious Golden Century Award. He works in almost all music genres, but he scored his biggest success in symphonic music, opera, operetta, musical and chamber music. He wrote over 1,000 children’s choral and pop songs, some of which became very popular. Here is what Professor Kostov told Radio Bulgaria about his author’s concert, which is to be held in his favorite music academy tonight:

“I will present older pieces at the concert. I wrote some of them when I was only thirty three years-old. I will also present my last piece named Concertino for Piano – “Monologues”. The piece is going to have its world premiere soon. It was written for piano and orchestra and my daughter Lilia will be the soloist. The concert will start with Rhythmic Movements for Symphony Orchestra which opened the season of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra back in 1975. The piece will be presented under the conductorship of exceptional maestro Dimitar Manolov. Then the audience is to hear a piece which was written in 2015 when I was nearly seventy five - a concertino for piano based on a folklore theme. I hope people will like that piece, too. The concert will be held on March 25, Friday, at 8 pm at the National Music Academy Professor Pancho Wladigeroff. The entrance for my concert is free of charge. The event will start with a symphonic music and is to end with fragments of my musical named The Four Twins to the rendition of charming musicians Katerina Tuparova and Alexander Mutafchiyski. Alexander will participate in the concert as a stage director, too. He made a short scenario where he is a narrator and a singer. The Habanera from my musical Casanova, which premiere was held in the city of Russe, will be also performed at the concert. I would like to thank the team of the Russe Opera, director Ognian Draganov and conductor Vladimir Boshnakov, as well as our young colleague Nikolay Motsov who starred as Casanova very successfully. Marcho Apostolov and Ludmila Kozareva are to perform duos from my latest musical The Sentimental Journey, libretto- Lubomir Levchev. The orchestra will be under the conductorship of young and talented musician Deyan Pavlov. The Habanera will be to the rendition of Elena Petrova.”

Georgi Kostov who has very strong sense of humor remembers his teacher Pancho Wladigeroff with lots of love. He shared some of his memories with Radio Bulgaria:

“My life shaped up under the guidance of my spiritual father - this is how I call Professor Pancho Wladigeroff. He started to work with me when I was only a fifteen year-old boy. I will never forget the fact that Bulgaria’s greatest musician paid such a big attention to me. He had an exceptional sense of humor and now you are going to hear a story in his style. I departed to Moscow to specialize there. He was not very happy with that fact, although my specialization was in Harmony - the subject I lectured at the academy later. He looked at me and said: Listen, you will not learn anything there. Even God can’t teach you the things I taught you. This is a very interesting way of thinking, a very unusual sense of humor. We always joked when we were in class. Inspiration makes artists great in their field. On the other hand, inspiration comes from love and love comes from women. My wife and my daughters are my muses. Since we already started this topic here is another story. Once, we visited Pancho Wladigeroff’s house. His wife Elka told me: Come and see what your godfather does and suddenly she brought a cardboard box with an inscription: Burlesque by Richard Wagner. However, there was an album with female photos in that box. It turned out that those women were Wladigeroff’s muses.

I spent nearly half a century at the National Music Academy. I served as a deputy-rector of the academy for two years and as a rector for eighteen whole years. I am proud that the academy was named after my teacher. It happened on March 15, 1995 when the academy was named National Music Academy and when I was Minister of Culture. So, I found a way to thank my great music teacher and Bulgaria’s biggest musician. I would like to wish our young musicians to fulfill their dreams in Bulgaria and abroad and may they always remember that they are Bulgarians above all. They should remember that they were born in a small and interesting country with exceptionally rich spirituality and folklore.”

The audio contains the following pieces:

1 - Joke

2 - Diaphonic Dances

3 - Rhythmic Movements

4 - Da Te Zhaduvam

English version: Kostadin Atanasov