Composer and conductor Georgi Tutev (1924–1994) was born in Sofia. His father was Bulgarian and his mother German. He spent part of his childhood in Dusseldorf. He graduated from the Moscow State Conservatoire “Pyotr Tchaikovsky” in 1950 majoring in Composition under Professor Yury Shaporin and V. Bely and Conducting under Professor Nikolay Anosov. In Bulgaria, he studied Composition with Lubomir Pipkov and Piano and Harmony with Professor Vesselin Stoyanov. In Bulgaria, he worked as a freelance composer. He was secretary of the Union of Bulgarian Composers (1954-58), music editor at the Bulgarian National Radio (1958-61), music director and principal conductor of the orchestra of the Youth National Theatre (1961-87). In 1990, he founded the Bulgarian Society of New Music as a section of the ISCM and became its first president, establishing the annual international festival Musica Nova – Sofia in 1993.
His music is connected with the vanguard trends in Bulgarian music. His work is mainly instrumental; it is not very large but could be considered part of the most innovative approaches in contemporary Bulgarian music. His first mature works were scored for symphony orchestra. In the early 1960s, he embraced serial and aleatory techniques. He composed two symphonies; works for strings and other instrumental ensembles; pieces for piano; film music, music to TV and theatre performances; solo and choral songs, etc. Most of his works were premiered abroad and included in the programmes of authoritative European music festivals such as the Zagreb Biennial Festival, Warsaw Autumn, the Musik-Biennale in Berlin, festivals in Saint Petersburg, Prague, Budapest, Hale, Berlin, Paris, Basel, Birmingham, etc. He recorded for the Bulgarian National Radio and for foreign radio companies.