Our principal teacher, Lora Dimitrova, organises, monitors and controls every student's development but is supported in her teaching by a number of assistant teachers. This use of assistants is one of the best features of the Russian school of music and is now copied by many western music conservatoires and academies. Lora herself worked as an assistant to her teachers when she graduated from the Bulgarian State Conservatoire. At the Sospiro Piano Centre, Lora teaches each student every three or four lessons, with an assistant taking the lessons in between.
In practice this means that students make better progress because they get that regular extra injection of fresh teaching and there are two teachers monitoring development all the time. It also makes it easier to give extra lessons before exams, concerts or competitions, and means that lesson planning can be more thorough.
One of the critical factors in this approach is to use assistant teachers with the same standards of musicianship and a similar teaching approach to the principal's - that's why it is so often former students who become assistants. At the Sospiro Piano Centre the three assistant teachers are all accomplished pianists with advanced performance diplomas from music colleges and they are all students of Lora Dimitrova. The different teachers all have slightly different specialities and students can therefore be assigned according to their needs.
Click on the names of the teachers below to see their biographies.