BOSHIKYOV Kiril

Born 1993 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Kiril Boshikyov is a classical guitarist that started his musical education at the age of 6. Shortly after being accepted at the National School for Music and Dance arts “Dobrin Petkov” under the tutoring of Valentin and Milena Valtchev, he has won several first and second places in national and international competitions throughout the country. In 2012, Kiril was accepted at the Royal College of Music, London, England – where he would complete his Bachelor of Music degree working with distinguished guitarists, such as Gary Ryan, Charles Ramirez, Chris Stell, Xuefei Yang, Craig Ogden and Carlos Bonell. Having a keen interest in exploring music of all forms, he has studied the art of playing the lute with Jacob Lindberg, along with jazz arranging and composition with Mark Armstrong.

Realizing the “duty” and opportunity to contribute to the comparatively limited classical guitar repertoire, Kiril began work on arranging well known and never-before-done pieces from some of his favourite composers like Debussy, Ravel and Vladigerov for guitar duo. Inspired by their impressionistic landscapes and lush harmonic language, he started exploring his own voice as a composer which led to the 2018 premier of Kiril’s first composition - Rêverie de Thrace, soon followed by a commission and premier of No mar das almas at the Royal Academy of Music later that year. After just a few completed works, he attempted his first composition competition, resulting in winning the 6^th GCC International Guitar Composition Competition and receiving the Changsha XinIe Award in Changsha, China in 2020 with the piece Spring arrives at Mount Yuelu. Kiril is currently working in London as a guitar tutor, performer, composer, arranger and music engraver.