Yosif Radionov

Billed as soloist, Jossif Radionov appeared with the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra in 2004, in concerts given at Plovdiv and Sofia. He shared those programmes with Angel Stankov, Ana Barbudeva, Apolon Gramatikopulos and Michel Michalakakos — a bill built on several soloists rather than one. Radionov appeared as a violin soloist at the Thracia Summer Music Festival in Plovdiv in 1997. Radionov studied with Vladimir Avramov and Leon Surujon, won first prize at the Svetoslav Obretenov competition in 1972 and at the chamber music competition in Osaka, and was concertmaster of the Sofia Philharmonic from 1982 to 1993. In a violin duo with Angel Stankov he played at the Gewandhaus, Suntory Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Moscow Conservatory, and with the pianist Zornitsa Radionova he made three discs; he has given first performances of new Bulgarian and foreign works and recorded for the BBC, Yomiuri Television and Radio Moscow. For over thirty years he has taught a violin class at the academy in Sofia, where his students have included Yoanna Kamenarska, Valya Dervenska and Martin Panteleev.