site.btaFinal Concerts of Academia Roza Open in Shipka on August 15

The first of three final concerts of Academia Roza 2025 will take place on Friday in Shipka, with all 25 participants from different towns in Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia ready to show what they have learned in the past week in the academy under the direction of maestro Lyubomir Denev Jr. and under the mentorship of professional musicians and teachers.

In the final concert programme, the audience will be able to enjoy works by Georg Philipp Telemann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn. The soloists will be the young talents and former graduates of the academy Mina Georgieva on the viola, Todor Georgiev on the violin, Maria Petkova on the oboe and Tsvetelina Zankova on the French horn.

"The training went wonderfully, I am extremely satisfied, and the students are incredibly talented and put in a lot of effort in the rehearsal process," Lyubomir Denev Jr., who is also this year's creative director of the academy, told BTA. He pointed out that it is a pleasure for him to be part of the musical format and emphasized that the most valuable thing about the summer music academy in Shipka is that the participants are faced with a strictly classical programme, meet other young musicians and learn to play in an orchestra.

The maestro stressed that the interest of young musicians in classical music in Bulgaria is in waves, as there are instruments that they are regularly highly interested in - such as the flute, piano, violin, guitar, but then there are also instruments that they are not so interested in, even though they should be. Denev Jr. therefore advised parents whose children have decided to study classical music to keep in mind that there are also less popular instruments that are just as beautiful.

Mentors at this year’s Academia Roza were Konstantina Todorova from the Varna Opera, Krasimir Kostadinov from the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Stanislava Stoykova from the Staatskapelle Berlin and Konstantin Dimitrov, concertmaster of the Ruse Opera.

The second final concert will be held in Kazanlak on August 16, while the third one will take place in Varna on August 17.

The annual summer music academies, organized by the Academia Roza Foundation, have established themselves as a platform for the development of young orchestral performers, the organizers stated, adding that this format was created as a response to the lack of sufficient opportunities for work in an orchestra within the framework of school art education. Among the goals of the academy is to inspire young talents, providing them with the opportunity to play music with recognized professionals from the country and abroad.