Ivan Kozhuharov

Native of Triavna, Bulgaria, Ivan Kozhuharov studied at the Academy of Music in Sofia, and subsequently with, among others, Arvid Jansons and Mariss Jansons at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St Petersburg. While still a student, he conducted at the opera studio of the St Petersburg Conservatory, and in a musical theatre company. In 1978 he became music director of the opera house in Burgas, Bulgaria, and in 1985 was made principal artistic director of the Burgas State Philharmonic Orchestra. He is currently music director of the Burgas Opera and Philharmonic Society.

From 1999–2001, Ivan Kozhuharov conducted the orchestra of the State Opera in Izmir, Turkey. Since 1997 he has regularly worked with the two orchestras in St Petersburg: the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the St Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra. Since 2001 he has likewise conducted the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey, and since 2005, the Prima La Musica – The Chamber Orchestra of Flanders in Aalst, Belgium.

In 1980, Ivan Kozhuharov was awarded Grand Prix in the International Béla Bartók conducting competition organised by Hungarian Television in Budapest; with a jury under the honorary chair of Herbert von Karajan. This achievement earned him a commission to work on a Hungarian-Canadian-US television film co-production marking the centenary of the birth of Béla Bartók. He has so far conducted over 1300 concert and opera performances (with the Bulgarian and Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestras, and at the Sofia and Budapest National Operas, as well as opera houses in Ruse, Plovdiv and Varna in Bulgaria, and in Mersin, Turkey), as well as guest appearing in Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, the former Jugoslavia, Russia, Estonia, Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Cuba, Cyprus, Switzerland, Belgium and other countries.

Since 1991 he has been conductor of the New Chamber Ensemble and the Camerata Classica in Sofia, with whom he has made several CD recordings for the Vienna-based label Divertimento. Since 2006 he has been engaged in film music projects for the Bulgarian SIF 309 Film & Music Productions company, working there with the latter’s Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra, and since 2010 he has collaborated with the Digital Record label, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra on recordings made in London’s famed Abbey Road Studios. Ivan Kozhuharov’s repertoire encompasses over 45 operas and 740 works by 170 composers.