Demna Gigova

DEMNA GIGOVA performs on concert stages as soloist, chamber musician and orchestrator. As assistant leader of the viola group in the Sofia Philharmonic (after 2017) and as leader of the viola group in the Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio (from 2011 to 2015) she made recordings for famous foreign film productions. She has also had experience as an orchestrator at the Sofia Opera and Ballet, where she worked from 2001 to 2008. For the golden fund of the Bulgarian National Radio she has made recordings of Sonata for viola and double bass by Emil Tabakov (2012), Sonata for viola and piano by Rebecca Clarke (2020) and Sonata for viola and piano by Hindemith, Op. 11, No. 4 (2023). She has participated in concert tours in the USA, Europe and Asia, in international festivals for solo and chamber music: in Semmering - Austria, "Kurt-Weill Fest" - Germany, "Sharoshpatok" - Hungary, "Sofia Music Weeks", "Varna Summer", "Days of Chamber Music" - Gabrovo and "Arbanassi Summer Music" - Veliko Tarnovo. As a member of foreign orchestras she had the opportunity to exchange professional experience with the first solo violists - Wilfried Strehle, Máté Szücs(Berlin Philharmonic) and Felix Schwarz (Staatsoper, Berlin). In 2014, after successfully passing a competition, she was accepted into the ensemble of the Brandenburger Symphoniker, Germany, and a year later (2015) she won a place as "vorspieler" (third solo viola) at the Anhaltisches Theater - Dessau, Germany. She performs actively as a guest of various Bulgarian and foreign chamber music ensembles, she is a member of the Hristo Tanev Quintet (2013), the Ars Music String Quartet (2014), the Festival Piano Quintet - Gabrovo (2014, 2021), the Philharmonic Chamber Sextet - Dessau, Germany (2017), the Abraham Piano Quintet - Brussels, Belgium (2022), etc. A graduate of the Dobrin Petkov Music School in Plovdiv in the viola class of Georgi Naydenov and of the Prof. Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music in the class of Prof. Stefan Zhilkov. She was awarded the First Prize at the Third National Competition for the Performance of German and Austrian Music - Burgas, 1999. In 2006 she specialized in viola and chamber music under Prof. Paul de Klerk at the Royal Conservatory - Brussels, Belgium. From 2020 to 2023 she has been is a full-time doctoral student at the Academy of Music in Sofia.