LORA MARKOVA (2003) was born in Sofia. She began playing the violin at the age of five in Blagorodna Taneva’s class at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School. She soon won first prizes in a number of national competitions – Young Virtuosos, Dobrin Petkov, Nedyalka Simeonova (2014), as well as the Grand Prix at the competitions Music and Earth (2018), Hopes, Masters and Talents (2019), and Nedyalka Simeonova (2021). On the international stage, she has gained recognition and won prestigious competitions for young violinists – Andrea Postacchini and Piccolo Violino in Italy, followed by awards at Anton Rubinstein in Germany, the International Violin Competition in Odessa, Ukraine, and Concertino Praga in the Czech Republic.
In 2020, she won First Prize at the Leonid Kogan International Competition in Brussels, and in 2021, she received First Prize at the prestigious Tibor Varga Junior Competition for violinists in Switzerland. This achievement opened doors for her to perform a series of solo recitals organized by the Swiss production agency AMG Rising Stars.
Her numerous concert appearances in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, the USA, and beyond have been enthusiastically received by audiences and highly praised by experts and music critics, who highlight her impressive technical abilities, maturity, and deep musical sensibility.
She performed at a very early age in Days of Bulgaria in Frankfurt (at the age of ten), Treasures of Bulgaria at Carnegie Hall, New York (at the age of eleven) to a great acclaim , and performed magnificently at the concert marking the 60th anniversary of the Sion Violon festival in Switzerland in 2024.
On the concert stage, Lora Markova performs under the baton of conductors such as Domenico Masson, Giancarlo Guarino, Leonid Kerbel, Marek Šedivý, Alexander Gordon, and Simon Wenger. In Bulgaria, she has appeared as a soloist with the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra, the Classic FM Orchestra, the Varna State Opera, the Simfonieta-Sofia, the Vidin Symphony, the Shumen Symphony, the Vratsa Symphony, and others. She has collaborated with prominent conductors including Emil Tabakov, Grigor Palikarov, Maxim Eshkenazi, Pavel Zlatarov, Kalina Vassileva, Arto Chifchiyan, and more. In 2024, she made her debut as a soloist with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Viliana Valtcheva.
In addition to being a soloist with a striking stage presence, Lora Markova is also a sought-after chamber musician. She has received scholarships from the Allegra Festival in Bulgaria, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland, the Leed Festival in Finland, and Villa Musica in Germany, where she has partnered on stage with established names in the world of classical music. Her work with the legendary violinist and teacher Boris Garlitzky, with whom she continues to collaborate today, has had a profound influence on her artistic development.
In 2022, Lora Markova was accepted as a student at the elite Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin in the class of Prof. Kolja Blacher. From 2025, she continued her studies at the Music Academy in Basel in the class of Prof. Leonidas Kavakos. She is one of only four students accepted into the renowned violinist’s first regular class. Her collaboration with him began in 2021 at his traditional master class in Athens, where she received a special scholarship from his foundation on her very first appearance.
Recognition of her talent in Bulgarian musical circles came in the form of the special award for young talent named after Olga Kamburova, presented to her by the Bulgarian National Radio’s Allegro Vivace program in 2020, as well as her nomination for Young Musician of the Year for several consecutive years.
A significant contribution to Lora Markova’s development and growth as a violinist—marked by solid technical training, an uncompromising sense of sound and style, and multi‑layered interpretation—has been her participation in master classes and academies under the guidance of world‑renowned teachers and violinists such as Prof. Michael Frischenschlager, Prof. Dora Schwarzberg, Prof. Leonid Kerbel, Prof. Zakhar Bron, Prof. Ivry Gitlis, Prof. Pavel Vernikov, Prof. Svetlana Makarova, Prof. Rainer Schmidt, Prof. Svetlin Roussev, and others.
Lora plays a violin crafted by Jean‑Baptiste Vuillaume in 1869, generously provided by the Villa Musica Foundation (Germany).
