Georgi Georgiev

Georgi Georgiev marked thirty years of playing in 2006, a career carried on in several capacities at once. He won the competition for first concertmaster of the Bulgarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in April 1989, went to Western Europe in 1992 to work as concertmaster with various ensembles, and in 1995 joined the Sofia Philharmonic as one of the leaders of the strings. He led the Philharmonic String Quartet - with Eshkenazi, Papazyan and Karakonov - which became attached to the Presidency in 1996 and gave concerts for visiting heads of state. He played chamber music with his sister Velislava Georgieva, appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Plovdiv and Ruse, and took up the viola in concert as well. A graduate of the Academy of Music in Sofia, he spent 1965 and 1966 in Switzerland with Max Rostal. By 2006 his recordings included one studio disc and four live recordings. A Sofia Philharmonic concert on 6 October 2018 was dedicated to his memory and identified him as a long-serving leader of its second violins.