Composer, choir conductor, performer and pedagogue, Albena was educated in Bulgaria and later specialized in Luxembourg, where she has been living and working since 1996. She has earned prestigious awards for her contribution to the cultural life of the country. She is founder and president of Club des Artistes en Herbe. The international composition contest, bearing the same name, is among her top priorities:

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• Around the Danubian plain, performed by the Sofia Brass Band, conductor Dotso Vutkov

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Besides Maria Miteva, the other members of The Ars Nova Lux trio are Luisa Partridge-Mauro, mezzo-soprano and Kae Shiraki, piano. Besides the above-mentioned works by Luxembourgian composers, at the concert in the Bulgaria chamber hall the trio also played works by Ravel, Piazzolla, Georgi Zlatev-Cherkin.

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• My fiancée, performed by the Sofia Brass Band, conductor Dotso Vutkov

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Vratchanski was a student of Czech Kapellmeister Alexander Wiener and of the unparalleled master of brass band horos – Diko Iliev. He dedicated his entire life to working with brass bands in different towns and villages. His distinctive talent has blazed a trail in Bulgarian music culture.

“Presenting a CD of works by my grandfather was a very special event for me,” his granddaughter says. “He passed away in 1990 and now, 27 years later an album of recordings of his horos is being released for the first time. All professional musicians in this country know who Andrei Vratchanski is, though he has, to some extent, been eclipsed by Diko Iliev. My grandfather was a modest man, he did his work without making much of a fuss. I remember his small room, full of books and sheet music. There, he composed his works. I spent hours there reading, drawing, looking at the musical scores, it was probably at that time that I “contracted” the creative virus. Five years ago my father Iliya Vratchanski wrote a book – “Andrei Vratchanski – the man known and unknown”. It was released by the “Music” publishing house and is bilingual – in Bulgarian and in French. My grandfather is a prominent figure of his time, a period when there existed a veritable phenomenon in Northern Bulgaria – the brass bands and the music they played in folklore style. The pieces were written by different composers though their names seem not to have been deemed so important and the music was regarded as authentic folklore. That is the reason why we don’t have much information. We compiled an archive of the works by Andrei Vratchanski. He wrote 52 horo tunes, of them only 17 have been recorded. Even though this kind of music is very different from what I myself write, I love to listen to it – it is so invigorating, so fresh…”

English version: Milena Daynova