About

Ivan Kostadinov Yanakiev – conductor and music theorist.

He graduated as a conductor at the National Academy of Music in Sofia, continuing his studies at the master classes of Prof. Uros Lajovic (prof. em. at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts). In 2013, Yanakiev created the 432 Chamber Orchestra in Sofia, in which he experimented with tuning instruments, using the a1 = 432 Hz concert instrument instead of the standardized 440 Hz. With this ensemble he was awarded the prize “Musician of the Year” 2015 in the category “Debut” of the broadcast “Allegro Vivace” (Bulgarian National Radio).

As a guest conductor Yanakiev has worked with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra (2020, 2019), Sliven Symphony Orchestra (2020), the Plovdiv State Opera Orchestra (2018, 2019), the Sofia Sinfonietta Orchestra (2019), the Classical Chamber Orchestra ( 2019, 2015-2016), “Dianopolis” Chamber Orchestra (2020, 2012) and others. He served as conductor of the Bulgarian Chamber Orchestra in Dobrich during the 2020–2021 seasons.

In October 2020 he defended his doctorate in Music Theory at the Institute for the Study of Arts of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with the thesis “Concert pitch a1 = 432 Hz and open fifths: an attempt for an integral acoustic, psychophysiological, cognitive and practical research.” The main scientific field in which Dr. Yanakiev works is tuning theory and tuning systems, microchromatic music and music perception.

He is the author of 13 articles and two studies. In his first study, “The Relationship between Language and New Music” (2019), he looked at parallels between linguistics and music theory, and in the second, “Mathematical Devices in Aid of Music Theory, Composition and Practice” (published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, London in 2020. ) Yanakiev considers correspondences between several mathematical principles and their reflections in music theory. At the end of February this year, two of his monographs were published – “The Concert Pitch a1 = 432 Hz” and “Microchromatic Music in the XX and XXI Century. Theory and Practice.”