Piano Masterclass with Romeo Smilkov

The renowned pianist Romeo Smilkov from Bulgaria will be in Cyprus for a piano concert and at the same time he will run a piano masterclass for students, on Saturday, September the 24th.

The participants will have the opportunity to work both private and in a group with the pianist and receive useful feedback for their performance.

If you want to participate please contact us at 70002420 or [email protected]. Limited availability of spaces.

Participation:
Group masterclass: 10 euro
Private masterclass (half hour): 25 euro
Private masterclass (one hour): 40 euro
Group & Private masterclass (half hour): 30 euro
Group & Private masterclass (one hour): 50 euro

A few words about Romeo Smilkov
Romeo Smilkov was born on the 7th July, 1960 in Chirpan, Bulgaria. A graduate of the National Music Academy “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov” in Sofia, he studied piano with Prof. Luba Encheva and Prof. Milena Mollova. Among his postgraduate studies was a master class with Prof. Vera Gornostaeva (Moscow) at the Varna Festival in Bulgaria.

He won numerous international and national prizes such as 1st Prize of the Salerno Piano Competition in Italy (1979); 2nd Prize of the Razgrad Piano Competition, Bulgaria (1984) and 3rd Prize of the Liszt-Bartok Competition (1989), organized by The Hungarian Cultural Center in Sofia. In 2011, he received the Special Prize “Medeniya Tchan” of the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts, Plovdiv. He also participated in the First International Piano Competition in Tokyo, Japan (1980), in the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition – Moscow, Russia (1982) and in the Liszt Competition/Festival in Budapest, Hungary (1986).

Romeo Smilkov has given more than 800 concerts in Bulgaria and in eleven countries of Europe and Asia (Russia, Japan, China and others). He appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras in Bulgaria and abroad.

His passion for teaching brought him to the secondary music schools in Stara Zagora (1983-1989) and in Plovdiv (1994-1997), both in South Bulgaria. He worked as an assistant of Prof. Milena Mollova at her piano classes at the National Music Academy in Sofia from 1991 to 1993.

Since 1991, Romeo Smilkov has been teaching piano at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. From 2014, he is a piano Professor at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts and at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia.

In 2012, he obtained his PhD for the theoretical research on the piano compositions of the Bulgarian composer Nikolay Stoykov. He has published three books as a result of his research in the field of the Bulgarian clavier music.

Romeo Smilkov is one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. His vast repertoire spans from Frescobaldi to Ligeti. He is a passionate performer of contemporary Bulgarian composers such as Dimitar Nenov (c.1902-1953), Pancho Vladigerov (1899-1978), Lazar Nikolov (1922-2005), Ivan Spassov (1934-1996), Nikolay Stoykov (1936), Vladimir Pantchev (1949), Georgi Arnaudov (1957). Many compositions were written especially for him. Romeo Smilkov presented for a first time in Bulgaria compositions by the Austrian composer Christian Utz and the Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Ciurlionis.

Romeo Smilkov released three solo albums for recording companies such as the American MMO, the Danish label Danacord Records and others. In March, 2016 he recorded the piano works of the Bulgarian pianist and composer Dimitar Nenov in Fazioli Hall in Sasile, Italy for the Greek label Arco.

Prof. Smilkov has held piano master classes at the Music Academy in Gdansk, Poland (2009), G. Tartini Conservatory in Trieste, Italy (2010), Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania (2011), Music Department of Istanbul Technical University, Turkey (2012), Harbin University in China (2012), Academy of Arts in Iasi, Romania (2014), Technopolis in Pafos, Cyprus (2015), Academy of Music in Wroclaw, Poland (2016). Between 2012- 2016, he was a Dean of the Department “Piano and accordion” in The Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv.