Emanuil Ivanov is the Academy's first Sulamita Aronovsky Piano Fellow
He was born in 1998 in the town of Pazardzhik, Bulgaria. From an early age he demonstrated a keen interest in and love for music.
After studying with Galina Daskalova and Atanas Kurtev in his home country, he moved to the UK in 2018. In 2024 he graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, having studied there on a full scholarship with Pascal Nemirovski and Anthony Hewitt.
In 2025 he completed the Advanced Diploma course at London’s Royal Academy of Music as a recipient of the prestigious Bicentenary Scholarship, under the supervision of Joanna MacGregor and Christopher Elton. Following this, he was named as the first Sulamita Aronovsky Piano Fellow at the Academy.
Emanuil attracted international attention after receiving the first prize at the 2019 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Italy. This achievement was followed by critically acclaimed performances and tours in Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, South Africa, the US, the United Kingdom and Poland, debuting in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and Munich’s Herkulessaal.
In February 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ivanov performed a solo recital in Milan’s famous Teatro alla Scala. The concert was live-streamed online and is a major highlight in the artist’s career.
In 2022, he received the honorary silver medal of the Musicians’ Company, London and later in the same year became a recipient of the prestigious Carnwath Piano Scholarship. In 2025, Emanuil’s debut CD was issued – an album of Scarlatti sonatas for the label Naxos.
He has continually shown affinity towards some of the more rarely performed works in the repertoire and in 2024 performed Busoni’s mammoth piano concerto, following this with performances of the complete cycle of Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich in 2025. Apart from playing the piano, he has been composing regularly since childhood.