Zhelyo Todorov, a first-semester bachelor's student in Prof. Denys Proshayev's class, won first prize at the International Music Online-Competition in Moscow.
The 19-year-old pianist Zhelyo Todorov was born in 2006 in the city of Varna, Bulgaria. There, he began taking lessons at the Dobri Hristov State Music Conservatory in 2013. He won his first competition at the age of 9 and performed with an orchestra for the first time at the age of 15, playing the first half of Camille Saint-Saëns' Second Piano Concerto. At the age of 17, he won a Bechstein concert grand piano and first prize at the Orbetello Piano Competition (Italy). On 29 January 2026, he will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Varna Opera and Ballet Orchestra.
He initially studied with Alexander Konstantinov and is now in his first semester of a bachelor's degree in Karlsruhe in the class of Prof. Denys Proshayev.