Biography
Composer Dobrinka Tabakova captured her initial composition prize at age 14, and today leading performers and groups regularly seek her work through commissions. Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in 1980 to two medical physicists, she relocated to London in 1991 and began studies at Alleyn's School. She next attended the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music, where a piece earned the Jean-Frederic Perrenoud Prize at the Fourth International Competition of Music in Vienna. While a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama she received the Lutosławski Composition Prize in 1999, and at King's College London she was awarded the Adam Prize for Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music in 2007, the same year she completed her PhD. Additional training came through summer courses in Paris, Prague, and Milan. Her principal teachers were Simon Bainbridge, Andrew Schultz, and Diana Burrell; she also participated in master classes led by John Adams, Iannis Xenakis, and Louis Andriessen, among others.
An early milestone arrived when her anthem Praise featured in the 2002 Golden Jubilee events honoring Queen Elizabeth II. Recordings of her music subsequently appeared on the Avie, BIS, and Hyperion labels, and in 2013 ECM issued the all-Tabakova album String Paths. In 2011 she claimed first prize and the accompanying medal in the Sorel Organization's choral competition held in New York. Her style blends minimalism with Renaissance and Baroque elements as well as Bulgarian folk traditions. Commissions have come from the Royal Philharmonic Society, BBC Radio 3, and the Three Choirs Festival, while orchestras such as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestra of the Swan, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales have programmed her scores. Festivals across Britain, the United States, and continental Europe—including appearances in Bulgaria and Russia—have presented her works, and she has served as composer-in-residence at the Utrecht International Chamber Music Festival, the Kremerata Baltica Festival in Latvia, and the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria. Further recognition arrived with an Ivor Novello Award nomination for Swarm Fanfares, a piece written for youth orchestra, at the Ivors Classical Awards; by then more than twenty-five of her compositions, chiefly orchestral, choral, and chamber works, had been recorded.
An early milestone arrived when her anthem Praise featured in the 2002 Golden Jubilee events honoring Queen Elizabeth II. Recordings of her music subsequently appeared on the Avie, BIS, and Hyperion labels, and in 2013 ECM issued the all-Tabakova album String Paths. In 2011 she claimed first prize and the accompanying medal in the Sorel Organization's choral competition held in New York. Her style blends minimalism with Renaissance and Baroque elements as well as Bulgarian folk traditions. Commissions have come from the Royal Philharmonic Society, BBC Radio 3, and the Three Choirs Festival, while orchestras such as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestra of the Swan, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales have programmed her scores. Festivals across Britain, the United States, and continental Europe—including appearances in Bulgaria and Russia—have presented her works, and she has served as composer-in-residence at the Utrecht International Chamber Music Festival, the Kremerata Baltica Festival in Latvia, and the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria. Further recognition arrived with an Ivor Novello Award nomination for Swarm Fanfares, a piece written for youth orchestra, at the Ivors Classical Awards; by then more than twenty-five of her compositions, chiefly orchestral, choral, and chamber works, had been recorded.