WORLD-FAMOUS jazzman Milcho Leviev, who now teaches jazz composition and improvisation at the University of Southern California, is currently holding a workshop on musical interpretation and improvisation at the New Bulgarian University. It will conclude with a concert at the university on Tuesday.

Leviev, 64, was born in Plovdiv, and is know referred to as a Bulgarian ambassador to the world. He never intended to be an ambassador as his only wish was to create music. "Music is a social art," he said. He has always wanted to stay at home and write music and now, after spending half a century in the entertainment business, he reflects on his dream as being something impossible.

His musical culture is rich and includes classical, jazz, and popular Eastern European music. Working as a composer has brought him a special awareness of swing and solo structures, and his compositions unite lyricism with a strong sense of form.

One of his favourite sayings concerns the way of living and working: The secret of happiness is not to do what you like but to like what you do. "I absolutely like what I do either as a teacher, composer or performer of music," he said.

Leviev shares Stravinsky's opinion that composition is 'a frozen improvisation'.

For him audiences can be separated into ages rather than tastes. What unites them is their ways of reacting to music. "If audiences are passive then music cannot be successfully performed since performing is a two-way exchange."

He compares folklore music and the currently fashionable rap music to junk food because it is easily sellable and consumable. "You need to be hip in order to be known," said Leviev. He thinks that audiences and society have become consumers and have thus been transformed into passive listeners.

Performing ensemble jazz is complete improvisation. "Playing jazz is like playing football," Leviev said, adding that musicians are throwing ideas at each other and elaborating them.

Don Ellis is the greatest legend he has worked with. "The biggest impression a jazz musician had on me between 1955 (the year I started listening to jazz) and 1970 was Don Ellis," he recalled. Until he became an American citizen in 1977 Leviev was a key part of the Don Ellis Orchestra. "That was a dream come true," he said. He even became a constant member of their group.

Leviev was also active as a composer, experimenting with music to be played by classical and jazz ensembles. Among his compositions at that time was music for the Big Band and the Symphony Orchestra. In addition to playing the piano in the Don Ellis Orchestra, he also composed, finding considerable rapport with Ellis's imaginative use of complex time signatures and his incorporation of ethnic elements.

Leviev also spent some years recording in London as the leader of a bop quartet with Art Pepper that made the impressive albums Blues For The Fisherman and True Blues. Through all the years performing on stage Leviev kept on repeating his motto that it is not important to be number one but to sustain your position.

Leviev studied at the Bulgarian State Music Academy in Sofia and graduated in 1960 with a Masters Degree in Composition. In the early 60s he became musical director of the state drama theatre and the Bulgarian Radio and Television Big Band. He also led the Jazz Focus quartet '65 from 1965-9, which won a prize at the first Montreal festival in 1967.

He was exposed to music from his early childhood, because his aunt was a pianist and her husband a choir conductor. In 1970, Leviev emigrated to Germany, where he worked with Albert Mangelsdorff and later moved to Los Angeles in 1971. His virtuosity and ability to play effortlessly in odd meters (a skill that originates from his familiarity with traditional Bulgarian music) were major assets during his successful career in jazz. Leviev has a marvellous sense of humor that is revealed in the music he plays and through the constant shift of ideas in his solos.

In the early 1980s Leviev worked with Manhattan Transfer (for whom he arranged Parker's "Confirmation", and also composed for, and recorded with, Al Jarreau. He was the founder and the leader of the Free Flight quartet, which played a fusion of jazz-rock and classical music. At the same time he continued to associate with big bands, working with Gerald Wilson and others. He also worked frequently with many important musicians in Los Angeles and elsewhere, playing with Ray Pizzi, Ray Brown, and Buddy Collette, and in an all-star septet with Oscar Brashear, Pizzi, Mundell Lowe and others.

From the beginning of the 90s, Leviev played solo gigs in Europe and in 1995 he received an honorary degree and a prestigious award from the Paris Academie Internationale des Arts. The piano artistry of Leviev has brought him recognition as a one of the major jazz innovators of this century.