Bulgarian guitarist Bozhana Pavlova successfully combines solo and chamber music performances in renowned concert halls around the world with active pedagogical work. She has won numerous prizes at international competitions and received awards for high artistic achievements from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture and the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. She has been Professor of Guitar at the Mozarteum University since 2024.
Bozhana Pavlova was born in Bulgaria. She studied with Stolina Dobreva at the National Music School “Ljubomir Pipkov” in Sofia, graduating with distinction, before completing a master’s degree in performance with Jorgos Panetsos at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. She also obtained a degree in guitar pedagogy from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she studied with Walter Würdinger and Adriano Del Sal. In 2019, she completed a PhD at the New Bulgarian University under the supervision of Panayot Panayotov.
Bozhana Pavlova is a prizewinner of competitions in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro and Croatia, among others. She attended masterclasses with David Russell, Carlo Marchione, Marcin Dylla, Aniello Desiderio, Hopkinson Smith and Dale Kavanagh. She received grants for high artistic achievements from the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture and the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, as well as a START-Stipendium for talented young musicians from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture. In 2016, she became an awardee of the SYLFF Tokyo Foundation, which supports exceptional young talents.
As a concert guitarist, she has performed in prestigious venues including the Wiener Konzerthaus, Ehrbar Hall and Bulgaria Hall. Concert invitations have taken her throughout Europe, as well as to Thailand and China, where she has given concerts in 13 of the country’s major concert halls. A passionate chamber musician, she is the founder of the Vienna Duo and Guitar Duo Artistic.
Her recordings have been broadcast on Austrian national television (ORF 1, ORF 2), Bulgarian national radio and television (BNR and BNT 1), and Radio Stephansdom. Bozhana Pavlova is an active member of the organising team of Forum Gitarre Wien.
She frequently shares her expertise with young musicians through masterclasses at the Forum Gitarre Wien, Albania Guitar Festival, Sofia Classical Guitar Days, Pleven Guitar Festival and Green Graz Guitar Festival, among others. She has been invited as a guest professor to the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music in Bangkok, the Conservatorio di Musica “Luigi Boccherini” in Lucca, the Academy of Music “Stanisław Moniuszko” in Gdańsk, and the National Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca.
She previously taught at the Johann Joseph Fux Conservatory in Graz and has held teaching positions at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna since 2017 and at the Mozarteum University since 2024.