Sofia-born LORA MARKOVA (2003) started studying the violin at the age of 5 under Blagorodna Taneva at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School. Soon after, she won first prizes in a number of national competitions – Young Virtuosi and Dobrin Petkov (2013), Nedyalka Simeonova (2014), Grand Prix of Music and the Earth (2018), Hopes, Masters and Talents (2019), Assen Diamandiev (2020) and Nedyalka Simeonova (2021).
She is also a laureate of the international competitions “Andrea Postacchini” and “Piccolo Violino” in Italy (2014), “Anton Rubinstein” in Germany (2017), “Odessa” in Ukraine (2018), “Concertino Prague” in the Czech Republic (2019), 1st prize of “Leonid Kogan” in Brussels (2020), and also 1st prize at the prestigious Tibor Varga Junior Violin Competition in Switzerland in 2021, which gave her the opportunity for numerous concert appearances and an invitation to recitals in Basel and Geneva by the Swiss production agency “AMG Rising Stars”. In 2020 she was awarded the special prize for young talent in the name of “Olga Kamburova by the Bulgarian National Radio’s “Allegro Vivace” programme , and in 2021 she was nominated for “Young Musician of the Year”. She is also the winner of the “Flight in Art” Grand Prize of the Stoyan Kambarev Foundation (2020).
Her solo performances in festivals and concerts include Days of Bulgaria in Frankfurt, “Music Mundi” in Brussels, “Treasures from Bulgaria” at Carnegie Hall – New York. She has toured in France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal. She has performed under the baton of Domenico Masson, Giancarlo Guarino, Leonid Kerbel, Marek Šedivý, Alexander Gordon and others. In Bulgaria she has performed as a soloist with the Pleven Philharmonic, Classic FM Orchestra, The Sofia Sinfonietta, Vidin Symphony, Shumen Symphony, Vratsa Symphony and others, in collaboration with conductors Emil Tabakov, Grigor Palikarov, Maxim Eshkenazy, Pavel Zlatarov, Tsanislav Petkov, Kalina Vasileva, Yordan Kamdzhalov.
She is also an active chamber musician. In 2021, in duo with cellist Sion Nyman, they won the Bohuslav Martinu Special Prize at the Concertino Prague International Competition in the Czech Republic (2021) and the first prizes at the Music and the Earth International Competition in Sofia and the Cantus Firmus National Radio Competition.
She has participated in master classes and academies of Michael Frischenschlager, Dora Schwarzberg, Leonid Kerbel, Zachar Bron, Ivri Gitlis, Pavel Vernikov, Svetlana Makarova, Rainer Schmidt, Boris Garlitsky, Vesko Eschkenazi, Svetlin Roussev, Mila Georgieva, etc. She is a 2021 Fellow of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Yordan Kamdzhalov Foundation, Leonidas Kavakos and Dakk App.
Lora Markova is currently continuing her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hans Eisler in Berlin. She is in the class of Professor Kolja Blacher.