From April 3 to 5, the festival for contemporary piano music "ppIANISSIMO" will be held for the 17th time. The idea of this forum is to focus on the possibilities of the piano as a keyboard and percussion instrument. On three nights at the podium in Studio 1 of the BNR, the most prominent singers and composers of our time will show their skills and professionalism. The playbill of "ppIANISSIMO" this year includes instrumentalists Boyan Vodenitcharov, Kamelia Miladinova, Albena Dimova... Also, the anniversaries of major Bulgarian composers Konstantin Iliev and Ivan Spassov will be marked.

The festival will open with "Loops and Dreams" – a concert of Kamelia Miladinova with guest soloist Kersten McCall.
“The concert on April 3 will be a recital for flute and piano”, says Kamelia Miladinova. “Kersten McCall who is a brass instrumentalist is a German living and working in the Netherlands. He was the first flutist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and is teaching at the Conservatory in Amsterdam. He is an incredible musician and a very valuable colleague for me. We have been working together for many years. Our participation at the 17th edition of “ppIANISSIMO” takes place at the invitation of Prof. Stella Dimitrova-Maistorova. The program includes mostly contemporary works, but we have set apart a special place also to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach as we will perform his Sonata for flute and clavier in A dur. Interestingly, half of the first part was lost during the time when he lived. Anyone who performs it today must come up with their own interpretation or use one written by another composer. In our case it was made by my colleague, flutist Kersten McCall. The last notes were literally finished the week before our arrival here for this festival. It's not easy to finish a work written by Bach in his style and spirit. Therefore, the creative process was associated with many changes to the last moment. You could say that our program for this concert includes plenty of new music by this genius composer."

This is not the first time that Kamelia Miladinova participates in "ppIANISSIMO". In 2001, she made a solo recital on its stage. Since her university years, the performer has shown affinity to contemporary classical music. After graduating her musical education at the Pancho Vladigerov Music Academy in the class of Prof. Stella Dimitrova-Maistorova, she settled in the Netherlands. There the pianist for the first time started paying more attention to modern composers and names not very familiar to the general public. Besides being a professor at the Conservatory in Rotterdam, Kamelia Miladinova is also an active concert artist. But she has always found a place in her repertoire for works written in the 20th and 21st century. She says that this music is closer to us as its contemporaries.

English version: Rossitsa Petcova