Bojidara Kouzmanova

Bojidara Kouzmanova is a Bulgarian violinist. She was born in 1977 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She studied at the "Ljubomir Pipkov" Music High-School - Sofia and at the Vienna Music University.

She won the following prizes:
#1995: International competition "Music and the Earth" - 2nd Prize;
#1995: National Violin Competition for German Music - Bourgas - 1st and Special Prize;
#1995: "Bela Bartok" competition - 1st Prize;
#1995: "Dobrin Petkov" Violin competition - 3rd Prize and Special Prize for youngest participant;
#1996: Second competition "Young musicians" - Sofia - 1st Prize;
#2000: Hudson Valley String Competition (USA) - 3rd Prize

As a soloist Miss Kouzmanova played with Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra, Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra, Varna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vratza Philharmonic Orchestra, Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra, Youth Orchestra "Plovdiv", Bohuslav Martunu Philharmonic Orchestra, Sofia Philhamonic, Bachsolisten (Vienna), Neues Orchester Basel (Switzerland), Kottmann Streicher and others.

As a soloist of different orchestras and chamber concerts Miss Kouzmanova played on concert tours to Spain, Greece, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, Israel, and in the USA.

Several composers dedicated their pieces for violin to her, of which she has given the premiere on different stages in Europe. Her first CD recording was in 1996 with Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Nayden Todorov with Bruch Violin concerto No. 1 and Mendelssohn Violin concerto. For CDs she recorded also the Violin concerti by Karen De Pastel, Sergei Prokofiev and Erich Wolfgang Korngold and also several CDs with works for violin and piano, recorded with the violin Stradivarius "Da Vinci" (1725) given to her at that time by Prof. Dietmar Machold.

She participated in the following violin courses: 1994 - by Prof. Munteanu (Romania), 1995 - by Prof. Vanja Milanova (Bulgaria), 1995 - by Prof. Michael Barta (USA), 1999 - by Prof. Jose Luis Garcia (Spain), 1999 & 2000 - by Prof. Alois Kottmann (Germany), 2000 - by Vladimir Spivakov (Russia).

Miss Kouzmanova has played with different famous instruments most of them given to her by Prof. Dietmar Machold (for example Stradivarius "The Red Diamond" - 1732, "Da Vinci" - 1725, Stradivarius 1717, Stradivarius Ex Nachez 1716, Stradivarius "Reynier" 1681, Pietro Guarneri 1735, Guarneri del Gesu 1741 and several new made violins - Gerlinde Reutterer 2004, Greiner).