Ivaylo Vassilev

IVAYLO VASSILEV (born in 2007) developed his professional career in Prof. Borislava Taneva's piano class at the L. Pipkov National School of Music. Even as a student, he actively performed on Bulgarian stages, both in solo recitals and as a soloist with orchestras. In 2023, at the age of only 15, he was invited to participate in the March Music Days International Festival (Ruse) as a soloist with the Plovdiv Orchestra. In early 2024, he traveled with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra as a soloist on their tour in the United States, where he gave a solo recital in Florida and performed 18 concerts with the orchestra in various cities and venues, including the Peabody Auditorium (Florida), Brooks Center (South Carolina), Givens Performing Arts Center (North Carolina), Forbes Center (Virginia), Lehman Center Bronx (New York), State Theatre New Jersey, Palladium (Illinois), and others. In 2025, he won first prize at the Pancho Vladigerov International Competition in Sofia, which was yet another success after more than 30 awards (mostly First prizes and Grand prizes) from international competitions in Bulgaria, Russia, the USA, Singapore, Finland, Kazakhstan, Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. In 2023, he was among the finalists at the Cliburn Junior Festival and Competition. His competition successes have earned him performances in iconic concert halls around the world, including the Philharmonie in Luxembourg, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Hall and the House of Music in Moscow, the St. Petersburg Symphony Chapel, the opera in Ghent, the Gustav Mahler Hall in Toblach (Italy), Jumeirah Zabee Music Hall in Dubai, and numerous concert halls across the United States. As a prize from a competition, he recorded a CD with piano and orchestra concertos by Mozart and Shostakovich. He has collaborated with conductors Sascha Goetzel (Austria), Pavel Baleff, Nayden Todorov, Konstantin Ilievsky, Emil Tabakov, Borjan Canev (North Macedonia), Derek Gleeson (Ireland), Grigor Palikarov, Alexander Titov (Russia), Alexander Chernushenko, (Russia), Igor Lerman (Russia), to name but a few. He has performed numerous times with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Varna and Plovdiv Opera and Symphony Orchestras, as well as with almost all Bulgarian orchestras. He has given many solo recitals in Sofia, Moscow, Warsaw, and across the United States. He participates in master classes with pianists and teachers from around the world. From 2014 to 2019, he studied piano with Emilia Kaneva at the Music School in Sofia. From 2019 to 2024, he studied with Ludmil Angelov, Vasily Ilisavsky, Philip Raskin, Konstantin Sherbakov, and Boyan Vodenicharov. As well as developing as a performer, he also composes, improvises, provides accompaniment and plays chamber music. He has performed many times with the Philharmonica String Quartet. He has been awarded the Dimitar Berbatov Foundation Grand Prize in the Art Category three times, and has received two awards from the Ministry of Culture for outstanding creative achievements. In 2021, Ivaylo Vassilev was nominated by the Sofia Philharmonic for the Crystal Lyre Award in the Young Musician category, which he won.