Vanya Milanova

Vanya Milanova was born on January the 12th 1954. She is an internationally renowned solo violinist and recording artist. She is noted for being a female breakthrough artist in a male dominated field. Her beauty of tone, technical ability and having an unusually large repertoire have been much commentated on in press reviews. She has made a lasting impact on violin performing through being the very first woman to record the entire 24 Paganini caprices in a primarily male field for the Simax Label, Oslo, 1985.^[1] She performed works which were often only attributed to male soloists. Bulgarian born, Vanya Milanova was a child prodigy, having performed her first paid concert at the age of three. 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 OBE. Before turning 20 years of age she had already won prizes at many of the major competitions: Tchaikovsky, Queen Elizabeth and Paganini. She has played with some of the best 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 and the Italian Label Real Sound.^[2] and has played at the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Opera House for the Edward Boyle Memorial Concert 1983 attended by Her Royal Majesty the Queen in aid of the Edward Boyle Memorial Trust, featuring Vanya Milanova, the Amadeus String Quartet, Murray Perahia, Kathryn Scott and Dame Janet Baker).^[3] Vanya Milanova has been awarded 'Freedom of the City Award' in her native Bulgaria for her outstanding contribution to music and popularising classical music to a younger generation. Alongside being a performing and recording artist, She was violin professor at Bilkent University, Turkey and at various other institutions where she disseminated her style to a new generation of young violinists.

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