Dimitar Liolev – alto saxophone
Todor Bakardjev – trumpet
Matthias Schwengler – trumpet
Velislav Stoyanov – trombone
Bozhidar Vassilev – trombone
Alexander Logozarov – guitar
Stefan Goranov – drums
Dimitar Liolev is a second generation professional musician. He is the son of Kostadin Liolev – an accordeonist, classical clarinetist, composer and arranger of Bulgarian folk music. Dimitar began studying music at age of 5, and saxophone – at age of 16. He is a graduate of both the Secondary Music School and the Academy of Music in Plovdiv, with piano and fagotto as his majors. For ten years Liolev played in pubs, restaurants and wedding celebrations, performing Bulgarian, Serbian, Turkish and Greek folk music, together with popular music and jazz. In 2000 Dimitar became a member of the young folk-fusion band “Brainstorm”. The band performed at numerous jazz clubs, festivals, TV and radio shows across Bulgaria. In 2002: accepted at the Prins Claus Conservatorium in Groningen, the Netherlands. There he graduated from the “New York Comes To Groningen” program. In 2004 Liolev reached the finals of the concours “Dutch Jazz Competition”, where he presented his first group“Rakia” on the stage of the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival. In 2005 he won second prize at the “Leidse jazz award” and was nominated for the ‘outstanding young performer award’: “Harten Aas jazz award”. He worked with some of the most famous Bulgarian and world artists – Dianne Reeves, Don Braden, Ralph Peterson, Conrad Herwig, JorisTeepe, Theodossi Spassov, Angel Zaberski Jr., Anthony Donchev, Hristo Yotsov, Stoyan Yankoulov, Hilda Kazasyan, Lili Ivanova and many more.
The album “Native” was released in 2022. A brass band plays everything. The famous Bulgarian saxophonist Dimitar Lolev presents eight original pieces. Most of the compositions creatively intertwine rhythms and harmonies from Western and Eastern musical culture with typical jazz music improvisations.