Sally Wave is the artistic pseudonym of Savelina Kancheva. She graduated from the Specialized Music School in Bourgas, Bulgaria. Later she attended the Bulgarian National Music Academy Prof. Pancho Vladigerov in Sofia and Prof. Rudolf Kehrer’s Master Class at the Hochschule für Musik F. Liszt in Weimar, Germany.
Academic Qualifications
Sally Wave obtained her Master’s degree in piano playing from the Bulgarian National Music Academy in 1996 and did a PhD in Music and Musical Culture in 2008 with a paper entitled “Mendelssohn’s Piano Sonatas”. Among her teachers have been Prof. Rudolf Kehrer, Prof. Athanas Kurtev, and Prof. Rostislav Yovchev.
Professional Experience
She worked as a Solo pianist and Chamber musician in Sofia, Bulgaria and also as a piano teacher of students aged 4-19 at the Bulgarian National School of Culture. Later she moved to the UK focusing on Solo and Chamber performance as well as devoting herself to teaching at the Tchaikovsky Music Academy London, Blüthner Piano Centre – Centre for Music Lessons & Instructions and A.Hanna & Sons Pianos Music Studio. Sally Wave has been invited to be on the jury of the International A. Stoqnov Piano competition.
Sally Wave is a London-based recitalist, educator and composer with a growing international presence. She has been performing in Europe and the United States as a solo and chamber musician, and as a concerto soloist in Germany and Bulgaria.
She has been acclaimed for her piano performances among other composers Beethoven – to whom she is devoting much attention in 2020 being the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Her second CD of Beethoven piano sonatas will be launched in 2020 and recitals programmed on this theme will follow. Her first CD comprised Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu op. 66, waltzes and nocturnes, Scriabin’s 24 preludes and works by Obretenov and Stoyanov.
She has been preparing students for music scholarships and many of them won top prizes at various music competitions in London. Specifically, her students invariably earn distinctive marks at exams by the Associated Board of Royal School of Music (ABRSM), London, UK.
She is the Founder and the Musical Director of the Wimbledon International Piano Competition and later of the London Youth Piano Competition LYPCO https://lypco.co.uk/
