Her career started when she was so young she didn’t even know what “child prodigy” means. She has learnt from the world’s top pedagogues at the most renowned music schools in the world, has won remarkable awards and has performed at the most prestigious concert halls on the planet. At age 26, Mila Georgieva joined the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and was the youngest concertmaster in its history.

Mila Georgieva’s home is in London but she is constantly travelling to Stuttgart and to different countries of Europe. No prestigious music forum in Bulgaria goes without her participation. She says she has wonderful memories of her first violin lessons in Bulgaria.

“I come from a family of musicians. My mother lectures solfeggio at the Lyubomir Pipkov National Music School, my father is a violinist and one of the founders of the Sofia Soloists chamber ensemble. I have an elder sister who is also a violinist, she too started playing at a very early age. I would mimic what she was doing and play, using two pencils and an imaginary violin.When I was four and a half I had a tiny violin made especially for me, because as a child I was small and couldn’t handle even the smallest violin. My first teacher was Alexander Serafimov, a colleague of my father’s from the Sofia Soloists; he was really good with children. We started with children’s songs, with him everything was a game. My father was always by my side but he wanted me to have someone else for a teacher. I have also studied the violin with Evelina Kazandjieva and GinkaGichkova. I was seven when I played with acclaimed Bulgarian violinist Mincho Minchev for the first time. And when he had the time, I worked with him as well. I then went on to study in New York; my first participation there was in the Aspen Music Festival. Prominent pianist from Bulgaria Pavlina Dokovska gave a record of mine to eminent violinist Dorothy De Lay who invited me to the festival. Later I went to Julliard School on a scholarship.”

Mila was just 13 when she went to USA. She spent ten years there studying and specializing. And all that time she played with a host of prestigious orchestras and with renowned conductors. “The experience I accumulated has helped me “find my own voice,” Mila says. In this, her specialization in London was particularly helpful.

“I wanted to come back to Europe and I spent two years at the Guildhall School of Music with Yfrah Neaman. After the American way of making music, in London I was able to work at a more steady pace. Prof. Yfrah Neaman had incredible intuition as a pedagogue. He left me to my own intuition and that was the best thing anyone could have done at that time – to let me find my own self, my own voice. I love solo recitals, the responsibilities a concertmaster has are so different and chamber music is the kind of music I love to play – it helps me bring out different aspects of music and somehow balances me, giving me the confidence to do what I want in terms of interpretation. Intuition, garnished with experience in different spheres – that is what gives freedom. It is simple – like flying. And when you do it, it is like the first or the last time – there is nothing that matters more.”

A few days ago Mila Georgieva had a concert as soloist and concertmaster of a renowned chamber orchestra; she has more concerts lined up with the quartet she plays with. When did Mila give her last concert:

“It was a little before I had my third child – at the end of March,” says Mila Georgieva. “I had just been thinking I would have enough time to learn some works I had planned on including in my repertoire for a long time – works by Hindemith, Mendelssohn, I wanted to play Bach more actively. But when the baby was born a few weeks early I had to give up my plans, at least for the time being. Actually, I have performed on stage until the last moment when I was pregnant with all three children. I shall be taking a break from my work with the orchestra for a few months – until the beginning of 2017, when I shall start work on some serious programmes.”

The audio features the following pieces:

-  Carmen fantasy, fragment, performed by Mila Georgieva with the Sofia Soloists, conductor PlamenJurov;

-  Concerto for two violins by Vivaldi, performed by Mila Georgieva and Mincho Minchev with the Sofia Soloists;

-  Campanella by Paganini, performed by Mila Georgieva with the Sofia Soloists;

-  Rhapsody for violin and piano by Bela Bartok, performed by Mila Georgieva and PlamenaMangova, a recording from the Varna Summer Festival.

English version: Milena Daynova