Atanas Kurtev

Atanas Kurtev

Professor Atanas Kurtev, PhD, grew up in a family of rich musical traditions. His first piano teacher was his mother, Sasha Lambreva-Kurteva. He began his university education at the “Prof. Pantcho Vladigerov” State Academy of Music in Sofia (1964, Lili Atanassova’s class), graduated from the “Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov” Conservatoire in St. Petersburg (1969, Pavel Serebryakov’s class) and the Brussels “Queen Elizabeth” Conservatoire (1973, Eduardo del Pueyo’s class). Then he specialized in Hungary in György Sebök’s and Pal Kadosha’s class and in France at Ivonne Léfebure’s class. In 1977 he defended a dissertation on the agogic problems in the interpretation of Scriabin’s piano works and took a doctoral degree. From the same year he began teaching at the “Pantcho Vladigerov” State Academy of Music in Sofia and in 1995 he received the title of Professor. He has given lectures in Styles of Piano Interpretation at the “Konstantin Preslavski” University in Shumen, Bulgaria.
Mr. Kurtev has made more than 950 stage appearances, of which over a hundred as a soloist of symphony orchestras in Bulgaria and in 18 European countries, Middle Asia, Turkey and Japan, including the Grand Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Hall of the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the St.Petersburg Imperial Chapel, Hall of the St.Petersburg philharmonic, Brahms Hall of Vienna, Toppan Hall of Tokyo and other prestigious halls throughout Europe and Russia. He has released 3 LP’s, 4 CD’s and 7 recital programs for the Bulgarian National Television. In addition, he has made more than a hundred audio and video recordings for the Bulgarian National Radio, the Bulgarian National Television and abroad, including more than 40 premiere performances.
The numerous solo concerts the pianist has given feature over 30 completely different monographic mono-style programs, ranging from Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert to Franck, Scriabin and Bartok (performed on stage between 1975 and 2002), together with “The piano fantasia throughout the centuries” concert cycle, including piano fantasias by 27 composers (1986-1987).
Parallel to his artistic performances Prof. Kurtev has been engaged in active educational, musical research and textological work, preparing the publishing of several music score editions, the book ”Piano-pianissimo”(1982), a number of articles and reviews. He is the initiator of the “Frederic Chopin” Musical Society in Bulgaria and his chairman (1997-2010), co-founder of music societies such as “Franz Schubert”, “Richard Wagner”. During 2010-11 on his initiative the “Sergei Rachmaninov” (honorary chairman) and “Alexander Scriabin”(chairman) music societies were created. He has taken part in international scientific symposiums, master classes in ten European countries and has been a member of juries at more than 20 national and international piano competitions in both Bulgaria and abroad.
Prof. Kurtev is the founder of six periodically held international competitions for pianists in Bulgaria, including ”Chopin in Memoriam” (Varna), ”Franz Schubert” (Russe), ”Classic and Contemporary” (Stara Zagora), ”Liszt – Bartok” (Sofia),” Russian Music” (Pleven), ”Schumann – Brahms” (Plovdiv), as well as other national competitions for young pianists. Students from his piano class at the National Academy of Music in Sofia have performed to the public 81 completely different in style concert programs with music from the preclassic to contemporary periods, including integral performance of piano works by Chopin, Wagner, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Bartok (33 concerts in total) together with the presentation of complete genre works of famous composers (Schubert’s sonatas in 5 concerts).