Georgi Dimitrov

Composer

Georgi writes acoustic music that explores the relationships between distinctive sound molds and the ways in which they relate, mix, and complement each other in order to create a viable sense of form. His pieces occasionally enjoy the high-definition purr that results from the inclusion of intervals tuned in just intonation. He takes great joy in, in conjunction with the above or not, using humor in his music: from a vulgar slapstick to an elegant eruditeness. His largest project to date, the one-act, one-hour chamber opera Maximus was premiered at the University of Southern California in 2014 and performed further in Los Angeles. The opera takes place in the near future and concerns a parking ticket that utterly destroys its protagonist’s life. It is scored for clarinet, violin, viola, cello; and a soprano, baritone, and bass who all portray multiple characters. The opera was conducted by the composer, as is much of his chamber music.

Active as a performer, Georgi is a proficient string player who began practicing violin at the age of 6. He has played as principal or assistant-principal in all three of Los Angeles’ youth orchestras: the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, the Young Artists Symphony Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony. He is a member of Che-Yen Chen’s viola studio at the Thornton School of Music and performs on a Miralles “Zanetto” viola generously lent to him by the Maestro Foundation. Georgi is also a Young Musicians Foundation Teaching Artist: he illustrates, weekly, the fundamentals of violin posture and sound production at several Los Angeles middle schools.

Georgi was born in 1989. At the age of fifteen he moved to Natick, Massachusetts, in order to study composition with Professor Whitman Brown at the Walnut Hill School. After graduating in 2008 he enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Music Composition. His principal instructors there included Wolfgang von Schweinitz and Karen Tanaka. In May 2014 Georgi earned a Master in Music in Composition degree from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

Georgi is currently a doctorate student in composition, as well as an Aural Skills Teaching Assistant, at the University of Southern California. He is improving his own notes under the tutelage of Dr. Donald Crockett, and has previously studied with Andrew Norman, Stephen Hartke, and Sean Friar. Georgi is minoring in instrumental conducting, viola performance, and theory and analysis. He is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Kappa Lambda honor societies. He also really, really likes eating at buffets.