While still a student at the National Music Academy in Sofia Simeon Pironkov played the violin at the Music Theater and in the orchestra of the Youth Theater. This experience was quite valuable and later Pironkov wrote music to 51 theater shows, as well as the operas The Colorful Bird and O My Dream. In 1952 Simeon Pironkov graduated composition in the class of renowned composer Parashkev Hadjiev, as well as conducting with Prof. Assen Dimitrov. With his very first works he demonstrated a sophisticated style and clarity of expression. Without denying tradition, he took a course towards new means of expression. In his chamber and symphony works he spanned a bridge from tradition to modernity.

Simeon Pironkov was above all a master of small formats that he created to sound refined and light. A lyrical composer, he fitted successfully into modern trends from the mid-20 c. with works such as Ballet Music in Memory of Stravinski, Good Person of Szechwan after Bertolt Brecht and the oratorio The Life and Sufferings of Sinful Sophronius. In 1980 he started lecturing musical setting to theater shows at the National Academy of Theater and Film Arts. Parallel to his projects in cinema and theatre Simeon Pironkov systematically developed the vocal-instrumental and chamber genres. He worked quite well with Bulgaria’s leading chamber orchestra The Sofia Soloists. For them he wrote many works like the already mentioned Movement for 13 Strings, The Genuine Apology of Socrates for bass, percussions and strings on lyrics by Kostas Varnalis, Requiem for a Young Stranger and others. Many of Simeon Pironkov’s works have been presented across Europe, in USA and Japan. In 1990 jointly with composer Georgi Toutev Pironkov founded New Music Society, the Bulgarian section of ISCM, the International Society for Contemporary  Music. He was also director of the Musica Nova Festival and chairman of Foundation and Opera Competition for Young Singers Boris Christoff, Sofia. In 1985 Simeon Pironkov received the Gottfried von Herder Prize of the University of Vienna.

The son of the prominent composer, Simeon Pironkov Jr., has continued the music tradition in the family. He graduated from the High School of Music in Sofia and in 1985 went to Vienna to study with a Herder scholarship. Pironkov Jr. graduated the University of Music and Performance Arts in Vienna with majors in composition, conducting and rehearsal piano. He lives and works in Vienna where his career started in the early 1990s as conductor of opera shows. In the meantime, as an excellent student he won a few scholarships. In 1992 Simeon Pironkov Jr. founded the Phace Contemporary Music chamber group for new music. With this group and with other projects he has travelled Europe, including Bulgaria, and also Japan and Indonesia presenting programs with classical chamber music of 20 and 21 c. For more than 20 years Simeon Pironkov Jr. has been lecturing in Vienna, and today he is professor of conducting.

English Daniela Konstantinova

The audio to this file contains the following tracks:

Music by Simeon Pironkov from the movie Khan Asparuh in the rendition of the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir

A fragment from Movement for 13 Strings by Simeon Pironkov; a live recording from Musica Nova forum in the rendition of the Sofia Soloist Chamber Orchestra

A fragment from Requiem for a Young Stranger by Simeon Pironkov in the rendition of the Sofia Soloists Chamber Orchestra, conductor Vasil Kazandjiev

First Movement from Game Spaces, by Simeon Pironkov Jr.