Chris Boyadjiev is a student at the Juilliard School in the flute studio of Profesor Jeffrey Khaner. Formally he attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Program and Marin School of the Arts. For two seasons, he has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and is holding principal flute with the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, where he has been a member for four years and was featured as the concerto competition soloist in 2021. Having performed and toured Europe with Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra over five years, he won the concerto competition twice and performed as soloist with them. The CBDA selected him as first flute to the 2021 California All-State Honor Wind Symphony. He has been playing flute, piccolo and alto flute simultaneously with two orchestras throughout middle and high school.
In the past four years he performed in a Flute and Harp Duo with his mother, harpist Bertina Boyadjiev at Santa Sabina Chapel in San Rafael and hopes to record an album as a Duo before he leaves for music school. Chris is excited to be discovering the repertoire and coloristic variety of playing in a Woodwind Quintet at the SFCM Pre-College Program. At the MSA, he played in several chamber ensembles as well as performing as a soloist with the Wind Ensemble.
Chris has received the highest Presidential Merit Honor for the Inaugural Creative Youth Celebration of the Bay Area Creative Foundation in 2021. As a winner of the Junior Bach Festival five times and the Marin Music Chest Scholarship Competition for five consecutive years, Chris has performed in winner’s recitals in San Francisco and Marin. He was awarded Superior Command Performance rating at the CMEA Music Festivals twice.
Solo competition awards include Sacramento Flute Club (first place twice in 2020 and 2021), FlootFire Soloist Competition (first place 2020), Pelican International Music Competition (First Prize award 2021), Claire Johnson Soloist Competition (second place 2021), San Francisco Flute Society (2021 third place), Mount Saint Mary’s University Music Competition (first place 2021) and Beyond The Masterclass Competition (first place 2021) with Jim Walker in L.A.
Chris played at the Galway Flute Festival in Switzerland in 2019 where he was selected to perform in the masterclass of Sir James Galway. As a participant in the Juilliard Summer Winds Program in 2020 and 2021, Chris worked with Carol Wincenc, Leone Buyse, Amy Ferguson and Elizabeth Rowe. He has performed in the Marina Piccinini International Masterclass, Jim Walker’s Beyond The Masterclass, ARIA International (with Judith Mendenhall, Bonita Boyd and Jonathan Keeble), Burkart Flute Academy 2019 in New York, and attended the 2021 Interlochen Advanced Flute Intensive Summer Institute, working with Linda Chesis, Judith Mendenhall and Nancy Stagnitta.
He is studying with Tim Day, principal flutist, and Catherine Payne, piccolo player of the San Francisco Symphony, and professors at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is very grateful to his teacher, Carol Adee for all her support and guidance.
Chris loves to spend time with his older two brothers (Tristan is a jazz saxophonist and sound designer and Sava is a winemaker) and enjoys playing tennis with his school team. When possible, Chris hopes to be able to continue having summer vacations in Bulgaria and enjoy traveling around Europe with his family.