About
LIYA
BIOGRAPHY
Renowned for her “exceptional tonal variety” (Gramophone Magazine) and “gorgeous, silvery sound” (The Sunday Times), Liya Petrova has earned international recognition as one of the most outstanding violinists of the current music scene. She first came to international attention in 2016, when she won First Prize at the Carl Nielsen Competition in Denmark.
Recent and upcoming highlights include appearances at the BBC Proms, and concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Berner Symphonieorchester, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Hungarian National Orchestra.
She has appeared as a soloist with such orchestras as the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, de Bordeaux, de Lille, des Pays de la Loire, Sinfonia Varsovia and the Odense Symphony Orchestra under such conductors as Elim Chan, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Tan Dun, Duncan Ward, Martyn Brabbins, Kristiina Poska, Riccardo Minasi, Kirill Karabits, Philippe Herreweghe, Krzysztof Penderecki, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Alexander Liebreich, Xian Zhang, Martijn Dendievel, and Michel Tabachnik.
Liya Petrova performs a wide-ranging repertoire that spans from the Baroque to contemporary works. Alongside the mainstream violin concertos, she maintains a strong commitment to lesser-known repertoire, including concertos by Pipkov, Godard, Stephan and others. Liya has a deep affinity for contemporary composers such as Dobrinka Tabakova, Tan Dun, and Philippe Hersant, who dedicated his violin concerto Cansos to her.
She enjoys playing chamber music regularly with pianists Alexandre Kantorow, Beatrice Rana and Pavel Kolesnikov as well as cellists Victor Julien-Laferrière and Aurélien Pascal. She has also collaborated with artists such as Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Dumay, James Ehnes, Antoine Tamestit, Mischa Maisky, Gautier Capuçon, Pablo Ferrández and Kian Soltani.
Petrova is a regular guest at major concert halls and festivals, including the Philharmonie de Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Royal Albert Hall London, Isarphilharmonie and Herkulessaal in Munich and festivals such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau Musik Festival, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Festival de Saint-Denis, Festival Radio France Montpellier, Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron, Festival de Menton, Festival de Pâques d’Aix-en-Provence and the Rencontres Musicales d’Évian.
Liya has been recording for the French label Mirare since 2020. In the spring 2025, she released her latest project, Momentum — a two-album set praised for its artistic ambition, featuring the Korngold and Walton concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Duncan Ward, alongside Strauss and Respighi sonatas with pianists Alexandre Kantorow and Adam Laloum. Momentum 1 and Momentum 2 received outstanding critical acclaim and were notably distinguished as an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, Orchestral Choice by BBC Music Magazine, Best Album of 2025 by Télérama, and Empfehlung des Monats by Fono Forum. Her previous albums on Mirare include a Beethoven-Barber-Britten recital with pianist Boris Kusnezow (2020), followed by Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Mozart’s rarely performed K271 Concerto (No. 7) with Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Sinfonia Varsovia. Earlier, she released a Nielsen and Prokofiev album on Orchid Classics with the Odense Symphony Orchestra and Kristiina Poska. All her recordings have received unanimous international praise.
Deeply committed to artistic programming and musical curation, Liya founded La Musikfest Parisienne in the spring 2020 during the first lockdown. Initially launched at Salle Cortot, the festival quickly gained acclaim and now takes place at the Philharmonie de Paris under the joint artistic direction of Liya and pianist Alexandre Kantorow. In 2022, she also co-founded the Rencontres Musicales de Nîmes with her close friends Alexandre Kantorow and Aurélien Pascal who continue to direct the festival together.
Born into a musical family in Bulgaria, Liya studied with Petru Munteanu at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock, Augustin Dumay at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin and Renaud Capuçon at the Haute École de Musique in Lausanne.
She is based in Paris, and plays a Stradivarius violin made in 1721 on loan from a private sponsor, and the ‘Consolo’, violin made in 1733 by Guarneri del Gesù, on loan from the Bulgarian State