Мария Белчева

A concert in Burgas on 17 June 2005 brought Maria Belcheva before the Burgas Philharmonic Orchestra as soloist, an evening she shared with Kostadin Andreev and Kiril Manolov. Belcheva was born in Burgas in 1956 and trained at the secondary music school there before entering the Pancho Vladigerov State Academy of Music in Sofia, in Irena Brambarova's class; she was already singing professionally as a student. From 1983 she was a soloist of the Burgas Opera, and in 1988 and 1989 she took further study at the Bulgarian Academy of Art and Culture in Rome. In 1992 she joined the National Opera and Ballet in Sofia, where her parts included Abigaille, Elisabeth in Don Carlos, Leonora in both Il trovatore and La forza del destino, Amelia, Desdemona, Maddalena, Fedora, La Gioconda, Mimi, Turandot, Tosca and Bess. She won first prize at the April Spring festival in 1989 and the Grand Prix and gold medal at the Mario Del Monaco competition in Italy in 1990. She became a professor of classical singing at the National Academy of Music in Sofia.