Dobrinka Tabakova

Dobrinka Tabakova is a composer of ‘exciting, deeply moving’ music (Washington Times), with ‘glowing tonal harmonies and grand, sweeping gestures [which] convey a huge emotional depth’ (The Strad). She has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, BBC Radio 3 and the European Broadcasting Union. Her debut profile album String Paths, on ECM Records, was nominated for a Grammy in 2014. In 2017 she was appointed composer-in-residence with the BBC Concert Orchestra. An album of her orchestral works, recorded by the Halle Orchestra, was released in October 2023.

Born in the historic town of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Tabakova has lived in London since 1991, graduating from the Guildhall School of Music, and obtaining a PhD from King’s College London. Her “riveting, piercingly beautiful and frequently radiant” music (Huffpost Arts & Culture) has featured in films (Jean-Luc Godard’s Adieu au langage), dance (Sydney Dance Company, San Francisco Ballet, Theater St.Gallen) and has been programmed at festivals across Europe and the US including: the BBC Proms (UK), Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), Bang on a Can (USA), World Sun Songs (Latvia) and Dark Music Days (Iceland). Tabakova has been resident composer at the Davos Summer Festival in Switzerland and Truro Cathedral, Cornwall (UK), as well as with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Swan (Stratford, UK).

Among prizes for her work are the prize for an anthem for Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee and First Prize and Medallion at the Sorel Choral Composition Contest in New York. Significant projects include Immortal Shakespeare, a cantata commemorating Shakespeare's 400th anniversary in 2016, the multi-commissioned double piano concerto Together Remember to Dance and the choir and strings work Centuries of Meditations for the Three Choirs Festival. Tabakova’s second album, devoted to her choral music and performed by the Truro Cathedral Choir with the BBCCO, was released by Regent Records, receiving a 2019 Gramophone Magazine Critics’ Choice. In 2021, Dobrinka Tabakova completed her orchestral Earth Suite for the BBC Concert Orchestra and the violin concerto The Patience of Trees for the Manchester International Festival. In 2022, she was named The Halle Orchestra's artist in association.

Forthcoming projects include a new album and premieres with The Halle Оrchestra, an extensive tour of the UK’s great cathedrals with vocal ensemble The Sixteen, celebrating William Byrd's 400th anniversary with two new commissions from Tabakova, as well as a follow-up ECM Records album.

Biography taken from composer’s website.
Photo: Benjamin Ealovega