Dobrinka Tabakova (born 1980)
Dobrinka Tabakova was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and moved to London when she was 11. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and earned a Ph.D. in composition from King’s College, London.
This five-movement Suite in Old Style (2006) for viola, harpsichord, and strings is an homage to the French Baroque and Rameau:
The composer writes that “this suite presents glimpses from everyday life at an 18th century aristocratic household: hunting, courting in the gardens, dancing and entertaining in opulent surroundings.” The outer movements are delightful in their evocations of the Baroque, yet it is the long slow middle movement (“the rose garden by moonlight”) that seems to me the emotional nostalgic core of the work.
Her 2007 work Dawn for solo violin and cello with string orchestra is the first of three compositions making up a Dawn-Day-Dusk triptych.