Bulgaria

The guitar entered Bulgaria in the first half of the 19th century along with the flute, violin, mandolin, double bass and other European instruments. It was originally used by music teachers. Names of authors of small guitar pieces or songs with guitar accompaniment, as well as transcriptions, stand out: Dobri Voynikov (1833-1878) – Shumen; Nikola Yankov (1860-1900) - Gabrovo; Emanuil Manolov (1860-1902); Rusi Kodjamanov (1866-1933); Boris Trichkov (1881-1944); Petar Boyadzhiev (1883-1961); Mihail Shekerdzhiev (1889-1957) etc. In the first half of the 20th century, guitar instruction was still absent in secondary and higher education. There are rare cases of pedagogues with European musical education who returned to their homeland to practice and pass on their professional knowledge of guitar art - Iliya Deliev, Nikola Nikov, Dimitar Doychinov, Panayot Panayotov, Luben Panayotov etc. In 1968 the Guitar enter professional education at the National Academy of Music "Prof. P. Vladigerov" - Sofia. In 1978 Classical guitar training began in the "Pedagogy of Music Education" specialty at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts "Prof. A. Diamandiev" - Plovdiv. After 1979 did the classical guitar enter professional education and the Bulgarian schools were formed mainly in Varna, Sofia and Plovdiv. Nowadays, guitar lessons are embedded in the programs of both higher education institutions, as well as secondary music schools, schools with advanced guitar studies and children's music schools. The first National classical guitar competition "Young Musician" was created and held in the period 1979-1989 in Chirpan (small town in the central part of Bulgaria). The first International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition was created and held in the period 1987-2010 in the city of Gotse Delchev. Currently, there are a number of international festivals and competitions in Bulgaria, such as: Plovdiv GuitArt Festival (1987); "Classical Guitar Days" – Varna (1987); International Classical Guitar Competition - Kyustendil (1997); International festival for guitar orchestras and ensembles - Ruse (2009); International Guitar Festival - Pleven (2015) The organized production of stringed musical instruments in Bulgaria dates back to 1924 in Kazanlak and it is associated with the work of Dimitar Georgiev Saranedelchev and his luthier studio, which grew into a factory. Since the end of 1999, the KREMONA factory for stringed instruments in Kazanlak has been a private enterprise and has 120 workers and master luthiers. They produce not only guitars, but also an extensive line of fretwork instruments. To this day, they do not use robotics or mechanization, as they believe that no machine can replace a well-trained hand and gentle human touch. The guitar series offers solid wood instruments with eleven scales of different sizes, divided into different categories. (kremona.com) In Bulgaria also has a big number of guitar luthiers such as: Hristo Georgiev, Rumen Todorov, Boyan Matev, Galin Penev, Borimir Pavlov. The following contemporary Bulgarian guitar composers are extremely famous: Rossen Balkanski; Atanas Ourkouzounov; Nikolay Peev, Plamen Petrov, Lyubomir Anov; Peter Kerkelov, Georgi Harizanov; Vladimir Vlaev, Vasil Belezhkov; Plamen Arabov, Ognyan Valev etc. BalkaNota is an imprint for publishing sheet music and music textbooks, with a focus on the classical guitar. It started in 2007 with the two widely acknowledged and beloved tutorials "Let's Play Guitar" (Да свирим на китара) for beginners by Valentin Valchev. BalkaNota publishes original and arranged or transcribed works for the guitar by classical as well as contemporary composers from Bulgaria and all over the world.