Иван Дончев

Twelve years old, Ivan Donchev walked on to play Haydn's D major Concerto with the Burgas Philharmonic in the city where he was born in 1981; the same year he took first prize at the Svetoslav Obretenov competition. Julia Nenova taught him at the Pancho Vladigerov National School of Music, and he later worked with Aldo Ciccolini. He won the Società Umanitaria competition in Milan in 2008 and has since played across Europe, Asia and the United States, in recital and with orchestra. All thirty-two Beethoven sonatas are in his repertoire; his recordings take in Liszt, the Beethoven violin sonatas, Tchaikovsky's Third Concerto and contemporary music. He has taught piano at the F. Torrefranca State Conservatory in Vibo Valentia and the Stanislao Giacomantonio Conservatory in Cosenza. Italy has been his base since 2000, and he took further studies at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. Among his records are Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, the Beethoven violin sonatas with Ivo Stankov and the Bacewicz sonatas with Annabelle Berthomé-Reynolds.