site.btaYoung Bulgarian Pianist with Solo Recital at Carnegie Hall on May 21

Bulgarian pianist Emanuil Ivanov will appear in a solo recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in New York City at 7:30 p.m. on May 21.

By this concert, the Musical Treasures from Bulgaria cycle will celebrate its 30th anniversary.

The recital's programme features Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" (op. 27 No. 2), a Symphony for solo piano (op. 39 no. 4-7) by Charles-Valentin Alkan, a Theme and Variations by Emanuil Ivanov, and Franz Liszt's Reminiscences de Norma (after Bellini's opera Norma).

Wednesday's concert is presented by the St Cyril and St Methodius International Foundation in collaboration with the Bulgarian Concert Evenings initiative in New York. 

The producer and the motor force behind the Musical Treasures from Bulgaria is Prof. Pavlina Dokovska, a prominent Bulgarian pianist who heads the Piano Department at the Mannes School of Music in New York City. She says that the idea of organizing the annual series of concerts at Carnegie Hall is to familiarize the American audience with talented Bulgarian musicians. Nearly 100 performers have been involved in the Musical Treasures since its launch in 1995, including violinists Mila Georgieva, Georgi Valchev and Bella Hristova, pianists Anna Stoycheva, Lora Tchekoratova, Nadejda Vlaeva, Lora Al-Ahmad and Georgi Lekov, cellists Hristo Tanev and Zlatomir Fung, clarinetist Dimitar Moskovski, and singer Mariana Karpatova.

Emanual Ivanov was born in Pazardzhik (South Central Bulgaria) in 1998. He started piano lessons at age 7, and was tutored by eminent Bulgarian pianist Atanas Kurtev. Next, he won a full scholarship at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where Pascal Nemirovski and Anthony Hewitt were his tutors, and in 2022, he received a Carnwath Piano Scholarship. Ivanov is currently an Advanced Diploma student at London's Royal Academy of Music as a recipient of a Bicentenary Scholarship. Gustav Mahler has been a major formative influence.

Apart from playing the piano, he is keenly interested in composition and has composed regularly since childhood.

The performer's repertoire focuses on more rarely performed works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Chopin, Gershwin, Grieg, Haydn, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky, and Pantcho Wladigeroff.

Emanuil's critically acclaimed recitals, concerto performances and tours have taken him to Japan, France, Italy (La Scala), Germany (Herkulessaal), Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, South Africa, the UK and Poland. In the summer of 2023, he recorded a Naxos-label album of Scarlatti sonatas. Ivanov's performances have been featured on BBC Radio 3, Italy's Rai Radio 3, and Japan's NHK Radio.

A solo recital at Milan's Teatro alla Scala in February 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was live-streamed online as a major highlight in the artist's career.

Ivanov won First Prize at the 2019 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Italy and an honorary silver medal of the Musician's Company, London, in 2022, as well as prizes at the Alessandro Casagrande, Scriabin-Rachmaninoff, Liszt-Bartók, Young Virtuosi, Dinu Lipatti and other prestigious international competitions, and the Crystal Lyre and Young Musician of the Year awards.

Later this year, he is scheduled to play Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues at the Duke's Hall of London's Royal Academy of Music, and Maurice Ravel's Piano concerto in G and Shostakovich at the Bulgaria Hall in Sofia.