Biography

When Belina Kostadinova first played for Rudolf Buchbinder in Switzerland in 1989, she brought a Haydn sonata along – a daring gambit to play for a distinguished Haydn scholar, but one that paid off when she was accepted as his student. Since her youth, she has played the sonatas of Haydn and the “Funérailles” by Liszt. And as a Bulgarian, Bartók’s “Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm” are in any case familiar to her. In the case of Chopin’s Etudes, she was influenced decisively by unauthorized recording of Géza Anda’s. There are pianists who play these pieces as if they were a sporting feat, but he played them in a manner that was both musical and moving, and this immediately inspired her. The program that she presents on this CD is thus a very personal one.
When, at the age of five, Belina Kostadinova watched her mother and uncle playing the piano at home, she decided to become a pianist herself. She received her first intensive training at the music high school of the Bulgarian city of Bourgas . After that, she continued her studies at the Music Academy in Sofia . There she studied with Mascha Krasteva (a former student of Lev Oborin), who is regarded as an important representative of the Russian piano tradition. It was there that she engaged with the Classical-Romantic, Russian-influenced repertoire, which was a real challenge: “We had to work very hard, had to learn to play everything from memory very quickly, but we also had fantastic possibilities, to play with the orchestra of the Conservatory and to give recitals.”

The students also took part in the complete performances that Krasteva organized of the works of Russian composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Rodion Schtschedrin and the Bulgarian composer Lazar Nikolov. Not wanting to lose touch with music that would forever be part of her home country, Kostadinova made a serious study of Bulgarian music and went on to win a prize for her interpretation of it. In 1989, Belina Kostadinova completed her studies in Sofia.

Belina wanted to continue working after that and to learn new things, and thus decided to go abroad. “I had already heard Rudolf Buchbinder play and knew that he was teaching at the Basle Music Academy. He taught me an enormous amount about the Classical and Romantic composers. Buchbinder respected his students as if they were colleagues, and he only taught in classes. Everyone had to listen to everyone else, and so we learned a lot from each other, also in matters of repertoire. Every lesson was a performance. It was with him that I prepared Richard Strauss' Burleske for piano and orchestra that I played with the Basle Symphony Orchestra.”

Gérard Wyss has remained important to her as a chamber music teacher. “I still play regularly for him when I have something important coming up.” After her concert diploma in Basle, she took her solo diploma in Zurich under Homero Francesch, “With him, I studied Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor and Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand, and played both with the orchestra in Schaffhausen and at the Zurich Music Academy.”

Belina Kostadinova has attended master classes of Alexis Weissenberg, Rudolf Buchbinder, and Paul Badura-Skoda. She has also won several national and international prizes, including the competitions of “Obretenov” and “Nenov” in Bulgaria; “The Salerno International Piano Competition” in Italy; the “Bourse pour les jeunes musiciens,” and the “Duttweiler-Hug” Prize in Switzerland.

In addition to Switzerland , which is Belina Kostadinova’s home base, she has performed in Bulgaria , Germany , France , Italy , Spain and the United States both as a recitalist and with orchestras. She also performs frequently as a chamber musician, playing with the Trio Latitude, and with several singers and instrumentalists.