site.btaComposer Angel Kotev: US Audience Applauded Bulgarian Rhapsody as If It Was Pop Star Concert

Over 3,000 people applauded in exultation, as if it was some pop star concert, after Rhapsody No3 by Bulgarian composer Angel Kotev. That happened a short while ago, during a summer festival on the shore of Chautauqua Lake in the US, held by the Chautauqua Institution. The piece was performed by Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Rosen Milanov, who is the orchestra's Music Director and Principal Conductor 

"He is an outstanding conductor of a new generation, who carries the glory of the Bulgarian conducting school around the world. He is principal conductor of several symphony orchestras in the US and Europe," the composer, Angel Kotev, told BTA. 

He said that the orchestra under Milanov's leadership performed his work in a remarkable way. "In a way that was typically his and that expressed his attitude to what I put in my work. That is very valuable for me: when somebody else interprets in their own way music I have composed."

He said that the US concert filled him with much joy: "And, to some extent, it was unexpected, but the reception was very warm, exceptional. I got a lot of rave reviews from the local press. In two major interviews together with Maestro Milanov I had the opportunity to explain about the characteristic rhythms of Bulgarian music - the so-called irregular bars."

The Chautauqua festival continued throughout the summer and featured works by leading musicians from all over the world with a variety of programmes of symphony, opera and operetta music, musicals and jazz.

"In this music, as a composer, I have poured all kinds of emotions: love for our country, adoration for heroism, my inner feeling for the fate of Bulgaria - for these more than 1300 years in which we have been both victors and vanquished. We have gone through every possible state that one can imagine. But, in the end, we have emerged victorious," said the composer.

He is also the author of the Borovets Jazz Festival anthem.

He also told BTA, "I wrote this rhapsody a long time ago. And then it was performed by the symphony orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio under the baton of Nayden Todorov. Later this rhapsody, together with other works of mine, was offered to maestro Rossen Milanov and he hiked it. This is how the connection for the concert across the Atlantic came about."
 
After that he received a commission for two more works, for chamber music and for a student orchestra in Istanbul. "My connection with Istanbul goes back a few years when I wrote Rhapsody No. 4 for a very interesting orchestra of eight ladies who play several kinds of flutes," adds the maestro.

Angel Kotev was born in Sofia on September 15, 1951. He graduated in 1977 from the Bulgarian State Conservatoire (the present-day National Academy of Music) with a degree in Composition. He composes in various genres: symphony, ballet, chamber, vocal, film, children's and electronic-acoustic music. Most of his works have been performed and recorded on national radio.