Martin Panteleev

Martin Panteleev, born in 1976 into a family of musicians, began the violin at four with Angelina Atanasova at the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music. Vladi Simeonov noticed him early and made him concertmaster of the Pioneer Youth Philharmonic, with which he gave his first concerts at home and abroad. At the National Academy of Music he graduated with honours in three disciplines — violin with Joseph Radionov, conducting with Plamen Djouroff and composition with Alexander Tekeliev. At nineteen Justus Frantz invited him into the Philharmonia of the Nations, where he later made his first appearances as conductor and composer, and by 2004 he was its principal guest conductor; his works were heard at Schleswig-Holstein and the Rheingau. He made his Sofia Philharmonic debut in 2004 and in 2011 became the youngest principal conductor in the orchestra's history. That same year he led the Cape Town Philharmonic on the first American tour ever made by an African orchestra, and in 2012 became its principal guest conductor. He studied at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School from 1983 to 1995, continued at the National Academy of Music in the violin class of Yosif Radionov and studied conducting and composition with Vassil Kazandjiev and Plamen Djurov, later completing the master classes of Zakhar Bron in Hamburg and Igor Ozim in Mainz and London, and Vladi Simeonov, who valued his talent early, invited him in 1985 as the concertmaster of the Pioneer Youth Philharmonic, when he was nine. Two details are reported differently. The masterclasses in Mainz and London are credited to Igor Ozim in the narrative and to Yfrah Neaman in the biography; and his standing in the Philharmonie der Nationen, founded by Leonard Bernstein and Justus Frantz, is given both as an invitation from Frantz at nineteen leading to principal guest conductor by 2004 and as second conductor from 1999, in which time he has played more than a thousand concerts. He has also worked with the Berliner Symphoniker, whom he took to China, the chamber orchestra of the Concertgebouw, the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony and the orchestra of Lecce, and appeared in the Royal Concertgebouw, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the MDR Musiksommer. Sofia Municipality gave him its special Sofia award for 2014, and his London debut with the Royal Symphony Orchestra came within the Festival of Bulgarian Culture.