“Adapting to living abroad, that is what is hard. The system of music education in Bulgaria has given us many advantages. What I like here is that talented musicians are given an opportunity to keep improving their abilities. For example, our lecturers had a system of special exercises for students with a perfect ear for music. Most professors at the Mozarteum are also researchers who are very active in their spheres and I have kept in touch with some of them. I was really lucky to have been able to study at the Mozarteum with Ruggiero Ricci.”

Since 2008, Yoanna Kamenarska has been second concert master at the Hamburg Philharmonic. This season she will have master classes in Japan and in Austria, which she will combine with concerts in Germany, Hungary and Salzburg. How has life changed for her since she came to occupy this post and how is she able to combine it with her career as solo musician?

“Hamburg is an incredible metropolis,” Yoanna says. “Living there brings the world to you, not vice versa. There is an up and a downside to everything. I loved my old life in Salzburg, but I can say that working in several spheres of instrumental music is enriching. I cannot restrict my work to just being concertmaster. But working in different spheres means being well organized all of the time.”

Yoanna Kamenarska has a busy schedule but she still finds the time for Bulgaria – she had a concert in this country at the end of June, featuring works by Sergey Prokofiev, Gabriel Fauré and Henryk Wieniawski.

Each of these composers represents a different musical style. How did she choose their works for her concert in Bulgaria?

“At first glance they may seem incompatible. Together with my good friend, pianist Irina Georgieva who has been living in Switzerland for years, we had dreamt of such a concert for a long time and we now had the opportunity to organize it in Bulgaria. So, we sat down to think which works would suit our own temperament. All of the works we included convey the idea of a new beginning. Sonata No. 1 by Prokofiev was composed during World War II when mankind was nearing the end of one and the beginning of another stage in its development. The next composer we chose - Gabriel Fauré – also lived and worked at a crucial time in the history of French art, a time when the French were beginning to renounce foreign and to turn to their own, national models. That was how we made the selection for the programme and it brought a new momentum to our work together with Irina.”

The original concept Yoanna Kamenarska and Irina Georgieva came up with will also go into the making of a CD with the works included in the concert programme, to be released in 2014.

The audio file contains the following works:

-  Caprice No. 9, The Hunt by Niccolo Paganini;

-  Fragment of Sonata No. 3, Ballad by Eugène Ysaÿe;

-  Fragment of Part III of Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Antonín Dvořák, with the Sofia Philharmonic, conductor Martin Panteleev.

English version: Milena Daynova