Dobrinka Tabakova is an award-winning young British/Bulgarian composer who lives and works in London. Having graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (BMus & MMus) and King’s College London (PhD, composition), she is making a strong impact on performers and audiences alike, with her striking compositional style. Idiosyncratic rhythms, memorable melodies, post-tonal/modal harmonies and distinct orchestration all form her musical language. She is sought after by many of today’s leading musicians including Maxim Rysanov, Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin and Nick Daniel and has worked with orchestras such as Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Amstedam Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Swan and BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Among the awards for Dobrinka’s work are the Jean-Frederic Perrenoud Prize and Medal at the 4th Vienna International Music Competition (1995), the GSMD Lutoslawski Composition Prize (1999), the prize for an anthem for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002 (performed at St. Paul’s Cathedral) and the 2007 Adam Prize of King’s College London for the song cycle Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music. Her works feature on a number of record labels- the anthem Praise on Hyperion (‘startlingly original- immediately appealing’, BBC Music Magazine) and Nocturne, Modetudes (2009) and Whispered Lullaby on the Avie label (Gramophone and BBC Music magazines Editor’s Choice June/August 2007).
During 2008 Dobrinka was one of 17 composers (including John Tavener, Giya Kancheli and Petris Vasks) invited to write a Sun Anthem for the large project of World’s Sun Songs, directed by Maris Sirmais with Riga Youth Choir Kamer, presented at the World Choral Symposium in Copenhagen. Choral works feature prominently in Dobrinka’s output, and she receives regular commissions from chapel and cathedral choirs around the UK and USA. Writing for strings is another major medium and her Concerto for Cello and Strings, commissioned by the Amsterdam Cello Bienalle for Kristine Blaumane and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, was premiered in 2008 at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw. This year she also completed a BBC commission for one of the leading contemporary violists – Maxim Rysanov.
2009 saw the premiere of the large scale solo cello, orchestra and choir symphonic impression On the South Downs, inspired by the downs, written for cellist Natalie Clein and West Sussex Youth Orchestra and Choirs. Also, pianist Evelyn Chang released her solo debut CD on the Avie label, featuring Dobrinka’s set of Modetudes and a newly composed Nocturne. Projects for 2010 include a tour of Such different paths around Europe with Janine Jansen and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The Academy, lead by Julian Rachlin are also set to tour Dobrinka’s Schubert Arpeggione Sonata arrangement for viola and strings around the USA next spring.
One of the champions of Dobrinka’s music has been the violist Maxim Rysanov, to whom she has dedicated a viola concerto The Song of the Enchanting Viola and three Suites. Maxim has performed the solo suite Pirin and the Suite in Old Style for viola, strings and harpsichord around Europe and premiered the viola and piano BBC/RPS commission Suite in Jazz Style in 2009, followed by performances at festivals in the UK and Europe. He will record Dobrinka’s Schubert Arpeggione arrangement for the BIS label in 2010 with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.
Dobrinka has been composer-in-residence at the 2007 Leicester International Festival of Music; guest composer at the International Chamber Music Festival, Utrecht and Julian Rachlin and Friends Dubrovnik Festival 2007; composer-in-residence at the Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica Festival 2008 in Sigulda, Latvia and featured composer at the Spectrum concerts, Berlin 20th anniversary concert.
Her works have been broadcast on Canadian, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Bulgarian and Latvian National Radio Stations, RAI 1, as well as regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, including two special recordings with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In 2005 the Bulgarian National Radio presented her Concerto for Viola and Strings at the International Rostrum of Composers in Vienna. Dobrinka has received commissions from BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Scheme; the Royal Philharmonic Society; Amsterdam Cello Bienalle, Orchestra of the Swan; International Chamber Music Festival, Utrecht; Moscow Homecoming Festival; The County of West Sussex; the alternative Dutch orchestra Ricciotti Ensemble; Leicester Festival; Spectrum Series, Berlin; Amsterdam Sinfonietta as well as two chamber operas- Midsummer Magic for the Guildhall School of Music, and The Custard Tart Opera performed at the international ‘Profile Intermedia’ design conference in Bremen.
Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in 1980, Dobrinka moved to London in 1991, where she attended Alleyn’s School and the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department, specialising in composition and piano. She graduated with distinction BMus and MMus in composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) and was then appointed composition fellow there. In 2007 she was awarded a doctorate in composition from King’s College London (KCL). Her composition teachers have included Simon Bainbridge, Diana Burrell, Robert Keeley and Andrew Schultz as well as masterclasses with John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Alexander Goehr, Marek Kopelent, Philip Manoury, Alessandro Solbiati, Olav-Anton Thommassen and Iannis Xenakis.
Commissions and Performances
Bell Tower in the Clouds – 2004
31 January 2005: Civic Hall, Stratford-upon-Avon (world premiere)
1 February 2005: Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham
Sonnets on Sundry Notes of Music – 2006
7 April 2006: Kingsley College Theatre, Redditch (world premiere)
Bell Tower in the Clouds
This summer, whilst walking in the Dolomites, I came across a small village on a Sunday. It was noon and the service had just finished. The bells of the church started to ring, and it was the most fascinating sound I had heard bells make. In general, ringing sounds easily impress me, and in particular bells, but the space where the Dolomite bells were resonating was rather compact and the sound bounced off old stone houses to become powerful clusters that lingered on. This is where the inspiration for this Orchestra of the Swan commission came from. In order to create a multi dimensional sound, there is a string quartet, which is presented in almost a concerto grosso way against the cluster chords of the body of the orchestra. This was also a decision I made after being told that the new piece would be programmed with Sir Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Double Orchestra.
Dobrinka Tabakova
Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music
2006 marks the 390th year since Shakespeare’s death, and it seemed fitting to celebrate his work with the Orchestra of the Swan who are based in his home town- Stratford-upon- Avon.
I was most keen to set some of the sonnets for soprano and orchestra, and in the end settled on some lesser-known poems, which make up the second part to The Passionate Pilgrim- ‘Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music’. There are six of these sonnets, of which I chose three. The last of the poems has a distinct difference in theme half way through so I divided it in half to make four sonnets in total- thus making the composition a cycle of four song settings.
Between each of the four songs there are instrumental interludes, or perhaps small scale overtures, which use the same chorale theme as their base and mix material from the forthcoming song.
The songs themselves have rather differing characters: he first one (a version of which features in Love’s Labour’s Lost) ‘On a day (alack the day!)’ tells a story of love at first sight; the second ‘Live with me, and be my love’ is a celebration of love; the third ‘As it fell upon a day’ is sorrowful and compares the lover’s pain to that of a wounded nightingale and the last ‘Words are easy like the wind’ tells of good friends and how hard they are to find.
Dobrinka Tabakova
Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music
On a day (alack the day!)
On a day (alack the day!)
Love, whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, ‘gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alas! my hand hath sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet,
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
Live with me, and be my love
Live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And all the craggy mountains yields.
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.
Love’s Answer.
If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
As it fell upon a day
As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring;
Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity:
Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;
Teru, teru, by and by:
That to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs, so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah, thought I, thou mourn’st in vain;
None take pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee.
King Pandion, he is dead;
All thy friends are lapp’d in lead;
All thy fellow-birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.
Whilst as fickle fortune smil’d,
Thou and I were both beguil’d.
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy like the wind
Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call:
And with such-like flattering,
‘Pity but he were a king.’
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
If to women he be bent,
They have at commandement:
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawn’d on him before,
Use his company no more.
He that is thy frend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.