site.btaThe Romantic Project: Allegra Festival Holds Second Winter Edition

The second winter edition of Allegra Festival of music will take place February 8 to 11 at the Central Military Club in Sofia. "This time we have named it The Romantic Project. Mendelssohn is the line that delicately goes through all the upcoming concerts – seemingly uniform in style, but actually not so much," commented Allegra Foundation Administrative Director Maria Naydenova-Abrasheva here on Thursday as Allegra Foundation and BTA signed a partnership agreement.

The first winter edition of Allegra was held in February 2025, after eleven successful summer editions. 

The Romantic Project will bring on stage distinguished soloists and chamber musicians, including piano player Emanuil Ivanov, who is a laureate of the Ferruccio Busoni competition; violinist Valeriy Sokolov, who is a winner of the Grand Prix of the George Enescu competition; violinist Lora Markova, a first-prize winner of the Tibor Varga Junior competition in Switzerland; violist Paul Zientara, a laureate of the Safran Foundation for Music Prize; and cellist Barna Karoy, who is a winner of the David Popper International Cello Competition.

The special guest this year is Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Udovychenko – laureate of the Montreal International Violin Competition, the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition (Helsinki), the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition (Hannover, Germany), and the Singapore International Violin Competition. With his winning of the first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in 2024, he climbed to the top of the world’s violin stage, alongside names such as David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan and Vadim Repin. 

The concert programme starts February 8 with Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 3 and Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 performed by Emanuil Ivanov, Valeriy Sokolov, Lora Markova, Paul Zientara and Barna Karoly.

On February 9, the programme moves through the passion of tango and the expressive worlds of Weill, Bloch, Eisler, Ravel and Kapustin. 

On February 10, the Allegra Festival brings all performers together on one stage to present a programme centred around Mendelssohn’s Sextet in D Major, Op. 110 and also including the world premiere of a Piano Quintet by Emanuil Ivanov — a work initiated by Petar Naydenov. Naydenov says the idea emerged spontaneously during their joint performance at last year’s festival edition.

The closing night on November 11 features two masterpieces of the Romantic era: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, with Dmytro Udovychenko as soloist, accompanied by the Allegra Festival Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Schlaefli.