For the second time in its 30-year-long history, the BNR Musician of the Year poll focused entirely on young artists. The audience had the opportunity to choose the winner among 11 nominated bright talents from the team of the BNR Allegro Vivace music show. The vote took place in January and February 2021 and involved nearly 4,000 people. The awards ceremony and gala concert featuring the 2019 and 2020 winners will take place in October, but the winners are already known. They were announced on the air of a special edition of the Allegro Vivace classical music program of the BNR’s Horizon channel.

For "Young Musician of the Year - 2020" BNR listeners chose the conductor Dimitar Kosev – the youngest conductor of an opera house in Bulgaria. Born into a family of musicians in Ruse, he is a graduate of the Ruse-based National School of Arts "Prof. Vesselin Stoyanov” in the piano class of Evgeni Zhelyazkov. He studied conducting with Prof. Maximilian Cencic and piano with Prof. Stefan Moeller at the Prayner Konservatorium in Vienna, graduating at the age of 21 with full honours. In 2013 he made his debut in Bulgaria as a conductor with the Ruse Philharmonic. Since February 2016, he has been a full-time conductor at the Stara Zagora State Opera, and since October 2017, he has been working at the Ruse State Opera. In December 2018, he conducted the Christmas concert of the Sofia Philharmonic.

In 2020, only 27 years old, Dimitar Kosev was unanimously elected chief conductor of the Ruse State Opera. He says without hesitation that he is inspired by the people he works with there. After the fire in the iconic opera house last summer, he became the initiator of the charity campaign with the motto "Art is a Phoenix". Kosev told Allegro Vivace that the closure of cultural institutions, including opera houses, during the pandemic year showed many breakthroughs, but also motivated musicians to work harder and better, because it became clear that without the classical music, or without culture at all, all is lost. And he hopes we will get a little better out of what happened.

Dimitar Kosev participates as a pianist and conductor in numerous projects related to jazz, pop and rock music, including “Classics meet ABBA”, “Classical Music meet Queen”, “45 Years of Diana Express” and others.

The winner of the Olga Kamburova prize for 2020 awarded in the name of the longtime host of the Allegro Vivace music show and the creator of the gala concerts "Musician of the Year" is the Atmospheres Piano duo, which includes pianists Alexandra Dicheva and Mila Mihova.

The award is given by the team of the Allegro Vivace show and gives its winners the opportunity to make their own professional studio recordings at the Bulgarian National Radio.

Edited by Albena Bezovska

English version Rositsa Petkova