The Artistic Collaboration That Led My Music to Carnegie Hall
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- Jun 28
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 7
In the final year of my doctoral studies at the University of Miami, I traveled to New York to attend the premiere of one of my compositions at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall.
For any composer working in concert music, Carnegie Hall is one of those names that needs no introduction. For well over a century, it has welcomed many of the world’s leading performers, composers, and orchestras, becoming one of the most iconic institutions in international musical life.
Sitting in that hall and hearing one of my own works come to life before an audience was a defining moment in my career.
The performance took place as part of a gala concert presented by the Bulgarian Embassy and featured the world premiere of a new version of the piece, written especially for that occasion.
The premiere at Carnegie Hall is only part of this story. What I find just as interesting is the path that led to it. Rather than emerging from a competition, an open call, or a deliberate strategy aimed at reaching that stage, the opportunity grew out of an artistic collaboration.
A composition only fully comes to life when it finds performers, performance opportunities, and an audience. Creating those connections is one of the greatest challenges in the professional lives of many composers. The story of this work offers one example of how an artistic collaboration can help make that happen.
Meeting Svet Stoyanov
During my studies at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, I had the opportunity to meet Bulgarian percussionist Svet Stoyanov.
A professor of percussion at the Frost School of Music and an internationally active performer, Svet has built an outstanding career as both a soloist and educator, appearing in major concert halls and festivals around the world.
During that time, I had the opportunity to observe his work closely, both as a teacher and as a performer. His interest in new music and his openness to different musical languages naturally created the conditions for a collaboration to develop.
Those conversations eventually gave rise to a project that would come to occupy a special place in my career as a composer.
Writing the Piece
The idea of composing a work for percussionist Svet Stoyanov led us to explore elements of Bulgarian musical tradition. Throughout that process, he shared a number of recordings with me, and we discussed how those musical references might find their way into the composition.
Among them, a traditional folk song called Dilmano Dilbero particularly captured my attention.
What struck me most at first was its rhythmic character. While much of Western music is organized around relatively regular duple and triple meters, many musical traditions from the Balkans explore asymmetrical rhythmic groupings that create a distinctive sense of movement. I was immediately drawn to that sound.
Rather than creating a direct arrangement of the folk material, I began imagining how those elements might interact with aspects of Brazilian music that have long been part of my musical background and compositional language.
Bulgarian Spices was originally written for a hybrid ensemble consisting of solo percussion, string quartet, flute, piano, double bass, and drum set. (Watch below a recording made at the Frost School of Music’s Department of Jazz recording studio at the University of Miami.)
My goal was to create a meeting point between different musical traditions.
Throughout the piece, Svet performs on both marimba and the tupan, a traditional Balkan drum that immediately reminded me of the zabumba, the bass drum central to baião and other musical traditions from Northeastern Brazil.
Although these musical cultures developed independently, I began noticing fascinating points of contact between their rhythmic languages. Some of those connections eventually became part of the composition itself.
→ Related: Writing Brazilian Music for Orchestra: Between Popular Music, Jazz, and Concert Music
A Carnegie Hall Premiere
Some time after the original recording, Svet reached out with a proposal. He had been invited to perform in a gala concert presented by the Bulgarian Embassy in New York at the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall.
Rather than simply programming an existing work, he asked whether I would be interested in creating a new version of the piece for a smaller ensemble consisting of percussion, violin, and piano. The idea was to present this new version as its world premiere during the concert.
I traveled to New York to attend the performance. When I first began writing that piece at the University of Miami, hearing it performed one day at Carnegie Hall was never part of the project’s horizon. The work had grown out of an artistic collaboration, my fascination with a musical tradition I was just beginning to explore, and the opportunity to write for an extraordinary musician. None of it had been conceived as a path toward a premiere in New York.
When the Music Found Its Audience
After the performance, I was interviewed by Bulgarian television about the composition, my collaboration with Svet Stoyanov, and the musical ideas that brought together different cultural traditions within the work.
I also had the opportunity to speak with members of the Bulgarian community who attended the concert. Several people told me they had known that melody since childhood but had never heard those musical references presented in that way. One person commented that combining elements of Bulgarian tradition with Brazilian rhythms had made the piece even more compelling.
What This Experience Means to Me
When people learn that one of my works premiered at Carnegie Hall, they usually see only the final outcome. When I think back to that evening at the Weill Recital Hall, I remember the emotion of hearing one of my compositions performed in one of the world’s most iconic concert venues.
I also remember everything that made that moment possible: years of study, the creative environment at the University of Miami, where the work was first composed and recorded, my partnership with Svet Stoyanov, and an artistic collaboration that continued to evolve long after the original version of the piece had been completed.
Today, I also see that evening as a moment of transition. It took place during the final months of my doctoral studies at the University of Miami and came shortly before my move to New York, where I would go on to build my career as a composer and become part of the city’s musical community.
Many of the most important moments in an artistic career reach the world’s great stages because they begin in classrooms, rehearsals, conversations between musicians, and projects whose destination no one could have predicted at the time.
About the Author
Rafael Piccolotto de Lima is a composer, arranger, music director, and educator. A Latin Grammy-nominated composer and recipient of 13 DownBeat Awards, he teaches, mentors, and supports musicians in the areas of composition, arranging, musical creativity, and artistic development.
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