Projects
The Dream of Pontius Pilate
The Dream of Pontius Pilate is a new musical piece written for symphonic orchestra and choir by the Bulgarian composer Stefan Dimitrov, famous for his popular music hits and film scores. The work, inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita, had its world premiere in 2018 under the baton of Ljubka Biagoni and performed by her orchestra Sofia Symphonics (http://www.sofiasymphonics.bg/). The two concerts took place in Sofia (“Bulgaria” Hall, 29.05.2018) and Plovdiv (Ancient Roman theatre, 13.06.2018).
The titles of the three movements of the work, ‘Aeternitas’ (Eternity), ‘Lux Aeterna’ (Eternal Light) and ‘Misericordia Pro Nobis’ (Mercy for us), allude to other literary classics, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, and align the work with the European classical music heritage. However, Dimitrov’s music brilliantly transports Bulgakov’s spiritual vision to our modern all-too-rational world and gives a fresh melodic interpretation of the multifacetted ideas about the Good and the Evil, the Light and the Darkness, and the origin of these forces. The Dream of Pontius Pilate is a call for spiritualism, a bow to the unvisible and the elusive in human life. It has a pronounced classical feel and structure. Yet, it sounds very contemporary and easily fits in the framework of our rational market oriented society. A musical project can be both avant-garde and accessible when created by one of the most prolific Bulgarian composers.
The Dream of Pontius Pilate was included in the official cultural programme of the Bulgarian presidency of the council of the EU and was funded by the National Culture Fund (http://ncf.bg/). The concerts were also made possible thanks to the generous support of BEGEExpo, DSK Bank and Legal Mediator as well as our media partners The Bulgarian National Radio and Nova TV.
The Bulgarian presidency of the council of the EU provided the opportunity not only for showcasing unique and high quality Bulgarian works to a multilingual and wider audience, but also stimulated artists to broaden their horizons and to think outside the familiar geographic and cultural boxes, as it were. Thematic diversity in the field of new classical music is evident on the Bulgarian music stage, but there is also an insufficient international exchange and export of contemporary Bulgarian orchestral music. The premiere of our project took place during a period of increased interest in Bulgaria and acute need of popularisation of its orchestral music which is as valuable as the Bulgarian instrumentalists and opera singers who have already earned their well-deserved fame in Europe.
The project is featured on the most comprehensive online resource on The Master and Margarita https://www.masterandmargarita.eu/en/05media/muziekdimitrov.html
A short video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg1XlT2Mg0E