Pianist Dilyana Hristova - always in love with life

The Bulgarian lives in Switzerland and loves to spread Bulgarian music and culture around the world

published on 4/13/24 8:10 AM

Photo: Personal archive

A cup of black coffee, a bowl of raspberries and chocolate, combined with a view that takes your breath away. Sounds soothing and dreamy, doesn't it? For years, pianist Dilyana Hristova has been looking for and finding similar places at home and abroad where she can be at peace, think or simply enjoy the silence. She believes that miracles are all around us and is very much in love with life. Born in Samokov, Diliana still enjoys performing in her hometown and supporting the local hospital with donations. But her home is now in one of the wealthiest countries in Europe - Switzerland.

She has both the talent and the dedication to detail in her interpretation of piano works, allowing her to teach her beloved instrument at the private Eglon College in one of the most famous mountain resorts in the French part of the country, Villars-sur-Ollon.

However, life has not always been kind to her and she would not wish the trials and tribulations she has faced on anyone. She gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl, who she raised happily until a visit to a medical facility left her daughter with a hospital-acquired infection. Sadly, it proved fatal. Dilyana was then separated from her husband and suffered serious health problems of her own. She was diagnosed with two different types of brain tumours. The doctors' prognosis gave her little chance of living a normal life, even if she underwent surgery:

"It took me a long time to recover. After the operation, which Professor Ventseslav Busarski, may he rest in peace, performed perfectly, I recovered almost 100%, but there are some changes in the brain and the neurologists say that I may now have multiple sclerosis - Dilyana calmly admits. - Whether I have MS or not, I don't know, I don't pay attention to it, and music is a great healer! I've noticed that in the last few years - after my operation, after these really dramatic moments I've had - my music has changed in such a way that it has a much more powerful effect on people than before".

Apart from Switzerland, where she has lived for five years, Dilyana has lived in Kuwait for 13 years.

"In Kuwait I also worked in an international school, but it was much easier because there was a very large Bulgarian community of doctors and nurses working in a military hospital. It was very easy to organise Bulgarian events. The embassy was very active, we had a folk dancing club, we had cooking competitions with Bulgarian dishes. All the Bulgarian holidays were celebrated, we could watch Bulgarian TV and it was common to hear Bulgarian spoken in the streets".

Moving to Switzerland must have been a culture shock for her:

"When I first came here, I didn't feel at home. It took me a long time to get used to life in Switzerland," Dilyana Hristova tells Radio Bulgaria. - There are hardly any Bulgarians around me, so I am happy that through the church (where she plays the organ at Sunday mass - ed.), through charity, through the college, I have a chance to promote our culture, which is thousands of years old, it deserves to be known by more people.

One way of doing this is to organise concerts of works by Bulgarian composers such as Petko Staynov and Pancho Vladigerov.

"Last December we performed with local musicians. A British and a Polish musician joined us. We played arrangements made especially for us by the conductor Stephen Tarry.

He's always been interested in Balkan rhythms and has arranged Romanian, Serbian and Bulgarian melodies, and I haven't played everything he's arranged yet," Diliana Hristova admits, adding, "I even use Tarry's arrangements for the orchestra I direct at the college, although the irregular rhythms are quite difficult. They like them, they hum along, but when they start playing we have a lot of trouble reproducing the music.

For me Bulgaria is not just music, for me Bulgaria is life and I will never forget it, concludes Dilyana Hristova.

Photos: Personal archive of Dilyana Hristova

Translated and posted by Elizabeth Radkova

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