Jul Levi among famous Bulgarian composers

This is the new alumni of the Union of Bulgarian Composers (that is, the youth section of the union, who had just joined the union, together with the veterans). You can see Philip Koutev, Liubomir Pipkov, Simeon Pironkov, who played the violin excellently. The photo was taken in Sofia in 1952. My life after 9th September 1944 was very nice. I graduated from high school and was very happy. My first public concert was also at that time. It was a charity concert for the Jewish orphanage in Sofia, which was in great misery. So, I and some boys of my age with whom I played in the school orchestra, put some tickets on sale and we organized a concert. We played the accordion, saxophone and the orphans danced. It all went great. I never had problems at my work for being a Jew. On the contrary, I have always been respected. I was declared an Honored Artist. I was given the rank of colonel, head of the Army Ensemble. The story of how I became head of the ensemble is interesting. It all started with a personal tragedy. While I was still a student, I suddenly lost my eyesight. It happened on 2nd March 1948. It turned out to be lack of vitamins and milk. I weighed only 44 kilograms then. But I recovered thanks to an incredible woman, Dr. Roza Goleminova. Later the same year, I was already healthy when I met Petar Stupel on the stairs of the Musical Academy. He told me to apply for the competition for a composer for the children's radio theater. At that time some distinguished artists worked there: Grisha Ostrovski was the director, Veselin Hanchev was the playwright, and Leda Mileva was the head of the literature department. The poet Alexander Gerov was the editor-in-chief of the literature department. An incredible staff! I was appointed among them and was really honored. Those were great times!