Around the Music Festival

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has announced that Albena Danailova will be the concertmaster for the New Year’s Concert 2024. This is the first time that a female concertmaster has been appointed for the New Year’s Concert.

Danailova was born in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. She grew up in a family where her father was a violinist and her mother a piano teacher, and studied in Germany in 1995 when she was 18 years old. After studying at the Rostock University of Music and Hamburg University of Music, she joined the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra in Munich as a player of the second violin section.

She later became first violin section and then first concertmaster in 2003. 2003-2004 she was concertmaster of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2008 she became concertmaster of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Since 2011, she has been the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Photo：Cantus Firmus　/　Ivo Chupetlovski