Dimiter Tapkov (12/07/1929 - 07/05/2011), a Bulgarian composer (from Sofia).

Dimitar Tapkoff graduated from the State Academy of Music in 1956 majoring in Composition under Professor Marin Goleminov. He worked at the Music Department of the Bulgarian National Radio (1956-62). He was Secretary General of the Union of Bulgarian Composers (1962-65), Director of Sofia Opera (1967-70), Rector of the State Academy of Music (1979-82); Deputy Director of the Scientific Art Studies Society at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1972-79), Vice-President of the Culture Committee (present-day Ministry of Culture) (1982-86). In 1997 he was appointed Director of the Sofia Music Weeks International Festival. In 1961 he joined the staff of the State Academy of Music as a lecturer in Orchestration. He also taught Orchestration at the Academy of Music and Dance Art in Plovdiv (1963-67), Composition at the State Academy of Music (from 1971). He was promoted full professor (1976). Currently he has been teaching at the Academy of Music and Dance Art in Plovdiv and at the Shumen University.
He composed stage music; requiem and cantata, works for symphony and string orchestra, chamber music, etc. He won a number of national and international distinctions. His compositional style reconsiders traditional genre forms and fills them with modern-sounding ideas. His music combines original use of instrumental timbres with linear dramaturgic development. His Cantata for Peace won the first prize at the International Composers' Rostrum in Paris (1976); his children's song cycle "6 igralki-zalagalki" (Six Children's Games) was prize-winning at a festival in Moscow (1978). A substantial part of his works were published, recorded under the baton of Vassil Stefanov and released on LP and CD.