15th International competition of young pianists - Nis

His first piano teacher was his mother, Sasha Lambreva-Kurteva. He began his university education at the "Pancho Vladigerov” State Academy of Music in Sofia (1964-1966, in the class of Lili Atanassova) and later continued and graduated the "N. Rimski-Korsakov" Conservatory of St. Petersburg (1969, class of Pavel Serebryakov) and the "Queen Elizabeth" Conservatory in Brussels (1973, class of Eduardo del Pueyo). He specialized in Hungary with George Sebok and Pal Kadosha and in France with Ivonne Lefebure.

In 1977 he obtained his doctoral degree, defending a dissertation on the interpretation of Scriabin's piano works (1977). The same year he started teaching at the "Pancho Vladigerov” State Academy of Music in Sofia, where in 1995 he was granted the title of Professor. He has also served on the faculty of the "Konstantin Preslavski" University in Shumen, Bulgaria, teaching classes in style and interpretation.

Atanas Kurtev has made more than 1200 stage appearances, of which more than 150 as a soloist of symphony orchestras in Bulgaria and in 30 countries in Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

His performances (more than 100 audio and video recordings of recital programs) have been featured in numerous gramophone records, CDs, movies for the Bulgarian National Radio, the Bulgarian National Television, and for other institutions abroad.

Among a multitude of solo concerts, the pianist has performed 30 completely different monographic programs featuring composers ranging from Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert to Franck, Scriabin, and Bartok as well as the concert cycle "The piano fantasia throughout the Centuries" by 27 composers.

Parallel to his artistic performances, Prof. MusD Atanas Kurtev engages actively in pedagogical work, musical research, and the preparation of texts, including the publishing of several music score editions, the book “Piano-pianissimo” (1982), and a number of articles and reviews. He is the founder and chairman of many musical societies: “Fr.Chopin”, “Alexander Skriabin”, “Sergei Rahmaninov” and co-founder of the "Franz Schubert" and "Richard Wagner'' musical societies. He has taken part in international scientific symposiums, as well as master classes in 15 European countries and has been a member of juries in more than 30 national and international piano competitions in Bulgaria and abroad.

On the initiative and idea of Prof. Kurtev 8 periodically held competitions for young pianists with international appearances have been established in Bulgaria since 1981: ''Chopin in memorian'' (Varna), ''Franz Schubert'' (Russe), ''Classic and contemporary'' (Stara Zagora), ''Liszt-Bartok'' (Sofia),'' Russian music'' (Pleven), ''Schumann-Brahms'' (Plovdiv); the "Great teachers" –„Victor Merjanov” International festival-competition (Kyustendil), the "Scriabin-Rachmaninoff" International Piano Competition (Sofia) and others.

In 2009, the monographical book „Atanas Kurtev – a poet on the piano“ was published by the Sofia University publishing house. The album "Atanas Kurtev - aristocrat of the clavier space", the publication of the Union of Bulgarian Composers(2017)

Professor Atanas Kurtev, is a winner of many national and international awards, and distinctions by Ministry of Culture of Hungary ,Poland, Bulgaria; (2010)-Honorary medal „Alexander Pushkin“ for distinguished contribuitions in the development of Russian-Bulgarian cultural relations from the president of the Republic of Russia, (2011)-„Kavalerski Krist” order from the President of the Republic of Poland for exceptional merits in the Global „Chopeniana“ , (2011)- The title of “academician” by the Director of the Institute for creative classical music at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In the same year, his name was included in „The World Encyclopedia- Who is who“ (2011), as well as the encyclopedias: “Scientific glory of Bulgaria”(2010), “Notable Bulgarians of Present-Day Bulgaria” (2012), and “Large Encyclopedia of Bulgaria” (2012) ,(2013)-"Mikhail Lomonosov" Award of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation for his contribution to world science... The students in his piano class at the ''National Music Academy'' of Sofia have performed (throughout the years) in public 81 completely different stylistically unified class concert programs, ranging from pre-classic to contemporary music, including integral performances of the complete piano works of Chopin, Wagner, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Bartok (33 concerts in total) and other integral performances of important compositional genres (for example, all the sonatas by Schubert in 5 concerts).

His students have won more than 110 awards at national and international competitions.