Zhivka Klinkova

Zhivka Klinkova was born in Samokov on 30 July 1924. A Bulgarian composer, pianist and conductor, her work is rooted in the national tradition of Bulgaria and has been performed chiefly at state theatres in Germany and in the former Czechoslovakia.

She graduated in 1951 from the Academy of Music in Sofia, where she studied composition with Hadjiev and piano with Nenov. Between 1951 and 1960 she worked as a conductor and composer with the Kutev State Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance. She then broadened her training in composition with Wagner-Régeny (1960–1966) and with Blacher in Berlin (1966–1968). From then on she devoted herself to composition as an independent professional, and her catalogue includes eleven ballets, four operas and a musical.

Her language, emotive and almost romantic in character, with a notable gift for melodic invention, draws on the features of Bulgarian folk music, while her subjects are often contemporary. In the ballet Than saen (Vietnamese Poem) she connects the magical world of fairies with a heroic people marked by war; the children's ballet Quenny, the Little Negro addresses racial oppression. The operas about Vassil Levski and about Cyril and Methodius belong to the tradition of the grand Bulgarian opera. The opera-ballet Olimpijski ustrem, Sanjat na Kuberten, written to celebrate the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, combines a big band style with a symphony orchestra and incorporates rhythms derived from rock.

Her legacy lies in having brought Bulgarian folk music into wide-ranging stage genres, with a body of work that blends ballet, opera and music for children's theatre.