Four Songs

These songs by Emile Naoumoff are squarely in the tradition of French lied composition such as by Gabriel Fauré. Here, Naoumoff chose texts by late 19th-century French lyricists: Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Emile Verhaeren, Charles Baudelaire and René-François Sully-Prudhomme. In their elegance and suppleness, the four songs sound typically French. As they are all easy to sing and have not been composed 'against' the voice, they are perfectly suited for both music lessons and concert programmes. Naoumoff was born in Sofia in 1962. At the age of eight, he began his career as a pianist and composer; he was a student of Nadia Boulanger for ten years until her death. At the age of ten, Naoumoff composed and performed his own piano concerto under the direction of Yehudi Menuhin. He then received numerous awards and prizes and gave performances as highly acclaimed pianist. Today, Naoumoff lives and works as an associate professor at the School of Music of the Indiana University at Bloomington. He gives master classes in the USA, Europe and Japan and is director of a music academy.