Vanya Milanova
Vanya Milanova is a Bulgarian-born solo violinist, recording artist and professor of music.
Early life and education
Milanova was born in Razgrad, Bulgaria. She was a child prodigy, having performed her first paid concert under the tutelage of Yordan Yordanov at the age of six. She studied at the Music School in Sofia and the State Music Academy in Sofia in the class of Peter Arnaudov, and later at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where she studied with pedagogue Yfrah Neaman.Career
At an early stage in her career, Milanova won prizes at several of the major international violin competitions: Kocian Violin Competition, Queen Elisabeth, Paganini and Tchaikovsky Competition|Tchaikovsky].She has played with orchestras in England, France, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, South America and South Africa. She has made frequent recordings with the BBC – London and Manchester, Norwegian Label Simax, Bulgarian National Radio and the Italian Label Real Sound, and has played at the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican Centre and the Royal Opera House for the Edward Boyle Memorial Concert 1983, attended by Her Majesty the Queen in aid of the Edward Boyle Memorial Trust. She often was the soloist for fundraising events and recitals at the Square Chapel in the 1990s. She performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto to positive reviews at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Hungarian concert pianist and conductor Tamas Vasary in 1982. She often performed with the pianist Jonathan Dunsby.
The Times, reviewing a concert in 1981, praises her 'jewel bright intonation'. Her beauty of tone is also mentioned in The Amadeus: Forty Years in Pictures and Words by Suzanne Rozsa-Lovett, and Beyond the Notes by Stephannie Williams, and her musicality is referenced in Dame Fanny Waterman's autobiography, My Life in Music. Milanova is featured on the front cover of The Strad magazine in January 1982.
She is the first woman to record the entire 24 Paganini caprices, which she did for the Simax Label, Oslo, 1985.
She was violin professor at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. She led masterclasses at the Music Academy 'Prof Sasha Popov' during the International 'March Music Days' Festival in Ruse, Bulgaria. She was a jury member for the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1994.