Vania Dobreva is an award-winning concert pianist and renowned piano teacher who resides in San Francisco, California.  She is the Founder and President of Vania Dobreva Music Schools, as well as a piano faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Convent & Stuart Hall Conservatory of Music and Ecole Notre Dames des Victoires.  Also, Vania was recently  elected as a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Idyllwild Arts Academy.

    Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria,  Vania entered the world of art at the age of four when she began studying the piano, rhythmic gymnastics and classical ballet. She was accepted to the “Dobrin Petkov National Music School for Gifted Children” specializing in piano. Vania’s formative piano teachers included senior pedagogue Rositza Ivancheva, Antoaneta Jankova, Elena Taseva and Prof. Stella Dimitrova-Maistorova.

    Vania began entering prestigious competitions at an early age and winning prizes, some of which include an Honorable Diploma from the 16th National Competition Svetoslav Obretenov, Bulgaria; Top Prize at the competition for Young Talents in Bulgaria; Two awards one for Second place and one Special Award for best performance of German composition of the Chairman, Prof. Walter Krafft at the National Competition for German and Austrian Music.

In 1999, Vania gave her debut recital at the world famous Gasteig Concert Hall in Munich, Germany.  The same year after a very successful concert season in Europe, she was accepted with a full scholarship to study at the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Southern California. Her teachers there were, Guy Lalime, Ory Shihor and Douglas Ashcraft. 

    During her studies Vania entered many competitions, one of them was the prestigious Redlands Bowl Competition for Young Artists and won First Place back to back in 2000 and 2001, and performing two concerts which were broadcast live by KVCR TV-24 station in California.

    After graduating from the Idyllwild Arts Academy with the honor, "Outstanding Pianist", Vania applied and was accepted to numerous schools, but chose to study with renowned Pianist Mack McCray at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition, she was awarded the Milton Salkind Piano scholarship for the length of her studies. Vania received her Bachelor of Music and Masters of Music degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she was given the honor of undergraduate graduation speaker at commencement.  During her tenure at SFCM, Vania was elected as the Keyboard Department’s Representative on the Student Advisory Committee for two consecutive years.  Vania also received the Dean’s Award for Service.

    Vania has performed numerous recitals in Europe, Asia and the United States   She has been invited to appear as a guest artist performer at the Chopin Foundation in San Francisco and has been frequent performer at major Music Festivals including;  Varna Summer International Music Festival in Bulgaria, Munich Music Seminar in Germany, Zephyr Chamber Music Festival in Italy, Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival and Santa Barbara’s Music Festival “Music Academy of the West.”  Vania has worked with renowned musicians, such as John Perry, Antoinette Perry, Boris Bloch, Ronald Keller, Walter Krafft, Milena Molova, Ransom Wilson, Aldo Mancinelli and Roberta Rust.