Nayden Andreev

Nayden Andreev (1945–2013) graduated from the Mining and Geology Institute in Sofia (1969) and the Academy of Music and Dance Art in Plovdiv (1984). He worked as Editor-in-Chief at the Pop Music Section of the Bulgarian National Radio (1972-90). He was appointed Music Director of the Satyre Theatre in Gabrovo (1984). Since 1997 he has worked as a freelance composer. From 1999 to 2001 he was a member of the National Music Council. He is a member of the International Slavic Academy based in Moscow and New York. He was promoted Professor in 2003. He owns the recording studio Andi and is active as a producer. In the 1970s and 1980s he made his name as one of the leading pop music composers in Bulgaria. He composed a lot of hits, music to films and TV performances, as well as four musical plays. He was composer, arranger and conductor of the programme of the vocal trio Trik at the International Festival of the European Televisions in Knok, Belguim (1986, third prize) and Austria (1987). He began composing as early as the 1960s (the orchestral piece Dobroudjana or the song “Who Overwhelmed Sofia with Love?” (lyrics and performance Mihail Belchev), won the gold medal at the World Youth and Students’ Festival held in Sofia in 1968. The 1970s and 1980s saw him win recognition as one of the leading pop song composers, author of hits performed by Margarita Hranova, Vasil Naydenov, Argirovi Brothers or Lili Ivanova. He composed film and TV shows music. In the 1990s he also wrote musicals, a rock opera, the album Dearer Than Gold and Pearls presented at the TV festival in Montreux, Switzerland in 1996. His songs were awarded at competitions and festivals in Bulgaria and abroad. He also won the Golden Orpheus Grand Prix for his complete work (1995). Nayden Andreev has published the albums My Melodies (1983, 1986); Selected Songs (released by the Russian recording company Melodia and performed by Andrey Mironov) and also Orchestral Pieces (1988); Opera About the Orthodoxy (1997); Moon Silhouettes (1998), etc. The children’s musicals Little Red Riding Hood, Puss-in-Boots, Cinderella and Snow-White after Charles Perrault, as well as the oratorio for mixed choir and orchestra Prayer were released on CD in 2002. Since 2002, he has been working on the mega show Bulgaria’s Eternal Songs for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra.