Dimitar Ivanov

Dimitar Ivanov is a musician specializing in the ten-string guitar. He began his musical education at New Bulgarian University in 2005, continued at the Conservatory in Sion, Switzerland, with George Vassilev from 2006 to 2014, studied in the Tonmeister programme at Zurich University of the Arts from 2015 to 2017 with a scholarship from the Konstantin and Zinovia Katzarovi Foundation, and completed his studies at the Geneva Conservatory with Dušan Bogdanović in 2017–2018. He has taken part in masterclasses with distinguished classical guitarists including Zoran Dukić, Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli, as well as with musicians such as Avishai Cohen, John McLaughlin, Francis Coletta and Matteo Mancuso.

He has performed at festivals including Lavaux Classique in Cully, Guitar Days in Sion, Les Rencontres Guitares in Bulle and Rencontres Orient Occident du Château Mercier in Sierre, as well as in Bulgaria, Switzerland, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. Inspired by Balkan music, he has developed a repertoire that includes arrangements and original compositions.

Dimitar has recorded more than ten albums, including Beyond Borders (2015), Balkan Fragments (2017) and Solo Ten (2019). In 2021, he released Goldberg Variations for two ten-string guitars, which was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). He has worked with musicians including Egberto and Alexandre Gismonti, Derek Gripper, Mihail Ivanov and Mario Forte.

In 2024, he presented his trio project Homage to Egberto Gismonti in Switzerland and joined the Balkan Moods quintet with internationally acclaimed musicians Teodosii Spassov (kaval), Atanas Ourkouzounov (guitar), George Vassilev (guitar) and Irina-Kalina Goudeva (double bass and voice), with whom he performed a series of concerts and recorded an album.