Nadejda Vlaeva: Bio

Nadejda Vlaeva, winner of the coveted Musician of the year award given by the Bulgarian National Radio, is an award-winning pianist who has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, including at Carnegie Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Rose Hall in Lincoln Center, the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai, and The Concertgebouw in The Netherlands. Her overwhelming musicality, poetic nature, and electrifying virtuosity have garnered accolades from many world-famous musicians. Lazar Berman called her talent “God-given”; Maestro Hans Graf observed that “her musicality and the depth of her interpretation amazed me,” and Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri String Quartet praised her as “one of those people of extraordinary ability whom we hope for but rarely see.”

Nadejda Vlaeva is a Hyperion Recording Artist, and was the first pianist to record the complete Bach Transcriptions of Camille Saint-Saëns ["positively stunning," BBC Music Magazine Instrumental CD of the Month]. The CD's opening track inspired the award winning short animation movie “Ouverture” that premiered at the Lincoln Center Film Festival in New York. Her Piano Music of Liszt CD won the Grand Prix "Liszt" du Disque, and her CD "Piano Music of Sergei Bortkiewicz" was a Musicweb Recording of the Year ("absolutely first class"). Her “A Treasury of Russian Romantic Piano” CD was described as "truly inspired," "exquisite," knockout performances," "extremely well-played," and "unfailingly sympathetic and musical." Her newest CD contains world-premiere recordings of works by the noted Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov. It has been named an Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine and a Critic’s Choice in International Piano.

In addition to her seven internationally released CDs, Nadejda Vlaeva has collaborated on projects with BBC Planet Earth and with violinists Joshua Bell and Cho-liang Lin, and performed with numerous conductors, including Hans Graf and Bernard Labadie. She also recorded soundtrack music for the documentary film "In Search of Cezanne" produced by Academy Award winner Allan Miller.

Vlaeva has performed at numerous music festivals, including the Bortkiewicz Festival and the Northern Musical Evenings festival in Ukraine, Husum Rarities of Piano Music Festival in Germany, the Chopin Festival in Kosovo, Evmelia festival in Greece, Portland Piano International, and the Houston International Piano Festival in the USA. She has been a guest artist at several Universities where she has performed and given master-classes, and she has served on competition juries in New York, Colorado, Hawaii, North Carolina, Winnipeg, Calgary and other North American cities. She also participates in programs that bring music to people with physical and mental disabilities.

Along with performing, Miss Vlaeva devotes some of her time to composing, and has composed several original works and arrangements, which are being published by Contemporary Composers Circle and can be heard on her YouTube channel. The American Composer Lowell Liebermann has dedicated two works to Nadejda Vlaeva, both of which were premiered by her.

Nadejda Vlaeva was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and began playing the piano at age 5. She has studied piano in Bulgaria, The Netherlands, and New York City. At age 15 she won First Prize at the Liszt competition in Lucca, Italy. Among other prizes and awards earned by Ms Vlaeva are Third Prize at the International Liszt Competition in Budapest, and the Yamaha Award for the best interpretation of Brahms. She currently divides her time between New York and Europe.

Nadejda Vlaeva is a Yamaha Artist.