Plano Concerto Evening

 

DANAIL RACHEV

Wednesday, June 18, 7:00 p.m.
Program

Bulgarian native Danail Rachev was named assistant conductor for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra effective in the 2005-2006 season. In his role as assistant conductor for the Symphony, Rachev assists the music director and guest conductors for various subscription and tour performances throughout the season as well as leads Dallas Symphony education concerts and community parks concerts.

In 2002-2003, Rachev was the first-ever conducting fellow of the New World Symphony in Miami, where he studied with Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas and shared the podium with him on several occasions. His debut and subsequent appearances in numerous subscription and chamber music concerts were met with consistent critical acclaim. He was recognized by the Florida Sun-Sentinel for his "vigorous, boldly projected" and "fluent and sensitive" conducting, and the Miami Herald called his reading of Mozart's Six German Dances, K. 509 "the evening's most spirited performance. Under Rachev's direction, New World musicians played with light hearts, infusing their own joy into Mozart's festive music."

Rachev has also served as cover conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, assistant conductor of the Columbia Orchestra (MD), associate director of orchestras at Baltimore School for the Arts and assistant conductor for the Baltimore Opera Company in productions of Elektra, Eugene Onegin and La Cenerentola. Rachev has appeared as guest conductor in Europe with the Bulgarian State Musical Academy Orchestra, Sofia Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Epoques (Sofia) and has also led productions of Don Pasquale and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Russe State Opera.

Originally trained at the State Musical Academy in Sofia, where he received degrees in orchestral and choral conducting, Rachev came to the United States in 1998 for studies at Peabody Conservatory on full scholarship. While at Peabody, he served as assistant conductor for the Opera Department, Peabody Symphony Orchestra and Peabody Camerata, graduating in 2000 with the master of music in orchestral conducting.

During the summer of 2002, Rachev was simultaneously chosen to be an academy conductor for the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and one of four participants in the National Conducting Institute in Washington, DC. The latter culminated in his well-received debut with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Rachev was a semifinalist in the Inaugural Maazel-Vilar International Conductors' Competition (2001) and a finalist in the Fundação Oriente International Young Conductors Competition in Lisbon, Portugal (2000). His conducting teachers have included Gustav Meier, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman and Leonard Slatkin.

Born and raised in Shumen, Bulgaria, Rachev comes to Dallas from New York City, where he has made his home for the past two years with his wife, Elizabeth.