Alexander Morfov

Alexander Morfov (1880-1934) was one of the pioneers in the Bulgarian choral music and founder of the Bulgarian military choral song. He was born in Stara Zagora and was brother of prominent opera singer Hristina Morfova. He graduated from the Bulgarian Catholic College in Edirne where he studied Flute. In 1902, he graduated from the Military School in Sofia. He taught there from 1904 to 1922. He took part in the Balkan wars (1912-13) and in the First World War (1914-18). Morfov was among the founding members of the Union of Bulgarian Popular Choirs. Creative and versatile, Morfov was violist and violoncellist, poet, publicist, painter, sculptor, woodcutter, carpenter and photographer. He created a new kind of flute manufactured by the Italian company Ramponi and a new instrument called Orphein with a timbre similar to the one of the viola and the violoncello. He composed over 40 military marches and patriotic songs, songs for male voices choir and mixed choir, solo songs with piano accompaniment, a liturgy. His songs Damyan tanec vodi, Baba Minkovtza and the ballad Seymeni are considered to be classic works in the Bulgarian choral tradition. He wrote the words for most of his songs as well as the libretto for the opera Zapustyalata vodenitsa (The Abandoned Mill) by Maestro Georgi Atanasov.