Svilen Angelov

Svilen Angelov was born in Bulgaria in 1974, and began composing at the age of five, while studying accordion and piano. As he owned no instruments, he had to practice on a keyboard painted on paper, which helped him to develop his visual imagination and concept of harmony. At thirteen, he entered the Pleven Conservatoire, where he studied piano, marimba, vibraphone and other percussion instruments. He later joined the composition class at the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg.

He has always been fascinated by rhythmic and harmonic aspects of Bulgarian popular music, as is evident in many of his works. He blends these elements with his own progressive chord combinations, influenced by the music of Debussy, Ravel, Bartok and the Jazz tradition. His desire to explore new land and expand the boundaries of harmony can be heard in the incredible modulations that take place in the middle of compositions such as Shadows, Dive, Within, where the whole harmonic construction almost collapses under its own weight, where he goes as far as touching the outer regions of tonality, bordering atonality.

His playing technique is astounding, combining traditional piano technique with the alternate hand style of mallet instruments and making it possible to play passages that actually sound unplayable. This is particulary striking in his more rhythmically developed pieces, such as Exhaustion and Paper Keys.

To lose ourselves in the incantation-like soundscapes of his compositions is an intimate experience that proves the existence of something beyond ...

Svilen Angelov

"I don't know where it comes from, I don't know where it goes to. I don't know what music really means, but I will always go on searching and searching ... I might never find the answer, but I know it exists somewhere. Or does it?

Perhaps it is a part of myself - deeply palmed and hidden. A part of my own soul with whom I so often speak, without knowing it at all. It is hard to hide somewhere and look for something where there is nothing, to create out of nothing. Nothing - the other side of something. Nothing is unknown to me, I can't comprehend or understand it, but it is the place from where I flow.

It seems so hazy, but nevertheless sincere. It seems so far off, and yet something you can reach. With the energy of our own minds - our only faculty - it always seems to go on, tumble and fall - raise again."

Svilen Angelov - spring '96