Best Spanish Pianists & Composers: Mariana Gurkova

Mariana Dimitrova Gurkova-Franco is a Bulgarian pianist, born in Sofia. Gurkova, who nowadays is a naturalised Spanish citizen, settled in Madrid in 1988. A former head professor at Badajoz's Conservatory, she is a teacher at Madrid's Real Conservatorio Superior.

*Record of piano prizes, incomplete*
Year	Competition	Prize	1st prize winner
1985	VI Ettore Pozzoli, Seregno	2nd prize	Klára Würtz
1989	I Jacinto e Inocencio Guerrero	1st prize
1989	XXXII Premio de Jaén	2nd prize	Martin Zehn
1990	X Paloma O'Shea, Santander	Semifinalist diploma	1st prize void
1992	XI Paloma O'Shea, Santander	Finalist prize	Eldar Nebolsin
1992	VIII José Iturbi, Valencia	3rd prize	1st prize void.	Source: wikipedia

Author

AGUSTÍN MANUEL MARTÍNEZ
Pianist, composer, teacher and lecturer. He specialized in improvisation and Silver Age's Hispanic Repertoire, like monographic Falla works concerts. He is pioneer in Albéniz and Granados Improvisation's transcriptions, (Boileau editions, also Homenaje a Tomás Bretón) doing their premieres and he has created the first constructivist methodology, Piano creativo -Creative piano- (Rivera editions, two volumes) among other publications, offering courses for teachers about this.

Seven times Honors, he wins two oppositions/competitions, University (Musical Education) and Conservatory (Piano), and obtains Superior Degree with distinction, number one of his promotion, at The Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music. He is first prize at Maestro Serrano Piano Competition, Medal at Concours Musical de France, awarded at Torneo Internazionali di Musica, two times first prize at Wenceslao Benítez Poetry Contest and first prize at Alzira National Poetry Competition (Bromera editions).

His students have been awarded more than thirty times at national and international piano competitions having won the first prize twenty times. He teaches Piano, Accompaniment and Singing Repertoire. He has made recordings for Vihuela Label and various TV channels like TVE (documentary about Rodrigo) or International Antenna3 (Madrid Vía Magna Festival concert broadcasted to America). He has worked, inter alia, with Chapuis, Halffter, Jackson, Rosen (postgraduate), Salvatierra, Sadie, Seiger, Tan, Tieles, Tverskaya and Yerokhin. He has offered concerts with several artists, classic and modern music, as Flynn, Fortea Dúo, Parsax Trío, Rosique and Villagar.

Páginas

Mariana Gurkova