Ivan Drenikov

At eighteen Ivan Drenikov took a prize at the Busoni Competition, and his studies took him to the State Conservatory in Sofia with Pancho Vladigerov and Panka Pelishek, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna academy with Richard Hauser, and from 1968 long periods of work with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli in Bergamo, Lugano and San Bernardo di Rabbi. Between 1978 and 1992 he was a staff soloist of the Sofia Philharmonic. He made recordings for Balkanton that were also distributed by Harmonia Mundi, Forlane, Fidelio and Verany. His repertoire includes Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and Vladigerov. Born in Sofia in 1945, he has taught for many years at the National Academy of Music in the city, and turned eighty in 2025. The Busoni prize of 1964 was a third, and among his first teachers was Vazkresia Valchanova; later he also worked with Alexis Weissenberg. He has given masterclasses and sat on the juries of international piano competitions.