Vеlitchka Yotcheva, one of Canada’s most gifted young cellists, is enjoying a brilliant career as a soloist and chamber musician, and has performed to great acclaim throughout Canada, as well as in Russia, Bulgaria, France, and the United States. Velitchka Yotcheva was born in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. She graduated from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Moscow, which is famous for its exceptional cello school. She has been living in Canada since 1995 and completed her Doctorate in Music in 2000, at the Universite de Montreal. She is the winner of prestigious national and international competitions. Velitchka Yotcheva has recorded for this programme two of the six suites for cello by Bach. The original manuscript of the suites has been lost, but two significant copies exist. The second and better-known one was copied by Bach’s wife, Anna Magdalena, in 1730.The suites were long considered as common exercises for violoncello, until Pablo Casals revived them and currently they take their worthy place in the cellists’ repertoire.
 
Recorded in Bulgaria Concert Hall, Sofia, December 2001