“Tradition is like a seed — you can’t force it to bear fruit overnight.”
— Prof. Dr. Eugeniy Chevkenov
The Tone of a Meeting
There are artists whose presence feels like a musical phrase - calm, structured, and profoundly alive. Prof. Dr. Eugeniy Chevkenov is not a musician drawn to spectacle. He speaks with the quiet certainty that comes from years of discipline, relentless practice, and a tradition that has been lived - not merely admired.
His life moves between Vienna and Plovdiv: between a city shaped by centuries of musical continuity, and a homeland still searching for ways to protect and nourish its cultural future. Our conversation wasn’t only about music. It was about everything that sustains it: identity, devotion, pulse, pedagogy - and the fragile line between technique and true artistry.
Identity is shaped through language, family, and place - but for a musician, it is shaped just as much through tempo, discipline, and the memory of tradition. For Eugeniy, Vienna and Plovdiv aren’t opposites. They are two forces that shape an artistic life: one grounded in continuity, the other built on resilience.
Vienna and Bulgaria. Family, Memory, and a Musical Line
Kalina: You’ve lived and worked in Plovdiv, Sofia, and Vienna - places with very different cultural rhythms. What did Vienna give you, and what do you think Viennese people could learn from Bulgarians?
Eugeniy: It’s a broad question, but I’ll try to be as clear as I can. I’ve lived in Plovdiv, Sofia, and Vienna - and I do see something shared between Vienna and Plovdiv: a creative atmosphere.
What Vienna gave me is the weight of a musical tradition that has been sustained at an incredibly high level for centuries. I deeply wish Bulgaria could develop that kind of continuity — but you can’t force it. It’s like planting a seed: you need time for it to bear fruit.
And what can Western Europeans learn from us? Resilience. The ability to keep your balance during a crisis — to step back when you must so the wave can pass, and then to move forward again with clarity. That’s not just psychology. It’s inner discipline.
In Eugeniy’s words, “continuity” isn’t an abstract concept. It’s a measure of time - time that accumulates, is protected, and is passed on. For him, it’s not about prestige, but about consistency: standards that don’t shift with the season, and a culture that isn’t built on short-term initiatives.
Bulgaria carries a different kind of strength - the capacity to endure and rebuild. The bigger question is: how do we transform endurance into cultural continuity?
Kalina: In your answers, tradition doesn’t sound like an idea - it feels personal. Does that come from your family history?
Eugeniy: Yes. My mother, Elena Baldzhieva, was an opera singer, and my father, Vladimir Chevkenov, was a pianist. On my mother’s side, there were no professional musicians before her - but on my father’s side, there is a strong musical line across generations.
My great-grandfather, Edgar Blümel, studied composition and conducting in Vienna, played several instruments, and later came to Bulgaria. Here he became a kapellmeister of the military band and later settled in Shumen - a place connected to some of the earliest musical initiatives in Bulgaria.
These details matter because they show that tradition isn’t a slogan - it’s a line that travels through time.
Growing Up Inside Art, Doubt - and the Crisis of Identity
Kalina: How did growing up in a musical family shape your artistic identity?
Eugeniy: There’s no way it couldn’t. I don’t know any other kind of childhood. Both my parents were artists, though my father had a more mischievous temperament.
From an early age I was around figures like Gena Dimitrova and Evgeny Nesterenko, who came to sing with my mother. One of my father’s closest friends was the painter Dimitar Kirov — I even have a portrait he painted of me when I was three.
You absorb that atmosphere. But then life brings crossroads - and at that point you need genuine love for the craft to continue.
To grow up surrounded by art is a gift - but it’s also a silent standard. You don’t simply hear excellence; you accept it as normal. And when the crossroads arrive, the “environment” isn’t enough anymore. What matters is whether you have the inner love and character to continue — without choosing the easy way.
Kalina: Was there ever a moment when you thought, “Why don’t I do something else?”
Eugeniy: Many times - usually because of self-doubt or external pressure. But I’ve been connected to music since I was five. I don’t remember life before it.
In 2021, during the restrictions, it was psychologically frightening. We were told we couldn’t perform and we couldn’t teach normally. For a musician, that isn’t merely professional limitation - it’s a crisis of identity.
A doctor becomes a doctor after graduating. But we are musicians from the age of five or six.
Kalina: Was there a decision that truly shaped your path?
Eugeniy: Yes. There was a point in Vienna when I could have gone in a completely different direction - I had a solo contract in the United States with a strong agency.
At the same time, the orchestral system is extremely demanding, but it gives you a different kind of knowledge and perspective. At that moment, Alfred Prinz played a very important role in my life - a legendary Philharmonic musician.
He told me something simple and powerful: focus on what you’ve already built, and don’t scatter yourself. Sometimes a single sentence from someone who has lived through an era can change everything.
Music as Identity
Kalina: You say music is identity. What does that look like in everyday life?
Eugeniy: I’ll give you an example - again with Alfred Prinz. Years after retiring, he still practiced every morning. There was no concert, no professional necessity - but for him, it was life. It was who he was.
That’s what being a musician means: not a job, but an inner habit of the spirit. If you stop, it feels as though you stop being yourself.
Kalina: As a child, you stood at a crossroads between sport and music.
Eugeniy: Yes. At nine, I was accepted both into a sports school for swimming and into music school. My parents asked what I wanted - and I chose music. But swimming remains my love.
I once had a funny exchange with Anton Sorokov, concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. I saw a video of him swimming and told him his “swimming setup” was just as good as his violin setup.
There’s a clear parallel: both sport and music demand tremendous discipline and physical development. The ability to repeat, to endure, to build form and resilience — that’s where what we later call “freedom” in performance is born.
Kalina: You played with the Vienna Philharmonic for five years. What did that experience teach you?
Eugeniy: It gave me every perspective: soloist, orchestral musician, chamber musician, teacher, conductor.
In the orchestra, I learned from the greatest conductors — Muti, Harnoncourt, Thielemann. You learn what they do - but just as importantly, what they don’t do.
A conductor should be like a doctor: first, do no harm. If you can help the soloist, wonderful — but never obstruct them. And because I’ve been in the shoes of orchestral musicians, it helps me tremendously when I conduct today.
Five seasons in such an orchestra doesn’t just give you experience - it trains your ear for nuance: when an intervention helps, when it harms; when authority becomes service, and when it turns into performance. That is why I speak of music not as display, but as responsibility.
Technique, “Mechanics,” and the Breath of Music
Kalina: What do you look for in a performance - what truly moves you?
Eugeniy: A performance is good for me when I forget I’m a professional musician while listening. I’m not looking for something flawless or mechanical. I’m looking for something that leaves an impact.
There’s a difference between technique and mechanics. Technique is necessary to create music. But mechanics is faultless execution without creative charge.
I also believe in the “right” tempo. If you find the pulse the composer intended, the phrase begins to flow naturally — and the technical difficulty actually becomes easier. Music must breathe — it carries tension and release, dominant and tonic. If a performance doesn’t breathe, it becomes mechanics.
Education and the Risk of Commercialization
Kalina: How do you see modern musical education - and what should change?
Eugeniy: In Austria, primary music education can be more elementary, but higher education is world-class because they take the best from around the world.
In Bulgaria, the system I grew up in gave a very comprehensive theoretical foundation — harmony, polyphony, music theory.
What I want to see stop is vulgar commercialization. Of course entertainment will always exist. But it’s humiliating to package classical music simply to sell more tickets.
The individual should be educated to rise to the level of art - not for art to be dragged down to the lowest common denominator and sold as “culture.” Art should be treated as a national priority and funded accordingly, so it doesn’t turn into spectacle.
Kalina: What is the most difficult thing to pass on to a student - and at the same time the most valuable?
Eugeniy: Independence and devotion. I try to provoke students to take initiative. Zakhar Bron once said the most important thing is for a student to learn to listen to themselves critically and correct themselves.
To master an instrument at the level of creative expression requires total dedication. If music isn’t the most important thing in your life, it will be heard in your tone.
Pedagogy also requires an individual approach. You have to know what to say - and what not to say — so that this particular person can move forward.
When a musician speaks about teaching, they are speaking about the future: what kind of person the student will become, what kind of character they will build, and how they will carry responsibility toward tone - and toward what the music is saying.
Final Cadence
Tradition isn’t a golden frame around the past. It is time - accumulated, lived, and passed on.
When Prof. Dr. Eugeniy Chevkenov speaks about Vienna, he speaks about that time: the patience required to keep standards high, and a continuity that doesn’t collapse with every new fashion.
But when he speaks about Bulgaria, the tone shifts - toward resilience. Not toward sentiment, but toward inner strength: knowing when to step back so the wave can pass, and when to move forward again without losing direction.
Somewhere between continuity and endurance stands the artist who does not chase perfection, but chases life - that breath which turns tone into speech.
Because music is not a demonstration.
It is a meeting - between the composer’s thought, the performer’s breath, and the listener’s heart.