Ivan Manoloff

Born in Varna, Bulgaria, he first took music lessons playing accordion at the age of 7, for about 3 years, and then just listening music with lots of interest till the age of 13, when he decided to begin to play guitar just for fun. After one and half years of just trying, suddenly an amazing and very fast progress was noticed. Since then nothing could really stop him from playing more and more, with first inspirations like Jimi Hendrix and Metallica, and 4 years later widely broad musical taste (from Django Reinhardt, through Miles Davis, Pat Martino, Kool and The Gang, Tower Of Power, Stevie Wonder, AC/DC, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Frank Zappa, Toto, Prince, Death, Cannibal Corpse, Jason Becker, Greg Howe, Richie Kotzen, Frank Gambale, till Nelly and even Hatebreed…). Any limit of what music to listen or play was kicked out. In the meanwhile, he was seriously taking music lessons of, first, classical music and then jazz, with the legendary jazz and world music guitar master Alexander Petkov. In the year 2000 he attempts to be admitted with scholarship to study at Berklee College Of Music, Boston, USA, and obtains it, but due to difficult international visa situation and still missing some funds, couldn’t use it. Not losing his faith, continued playing with several bands and the best musicians in Bulgaria and writing music in different styles, from ragga, through rock and hardcore/metal, till jazz-rock fusion. Fully in the world of professional music, began to travel and play all kinds of music. In 2003 decided to go to Gothenburg, Sweden and meet the most avant-garde shred guitar virtuoso of our time, Mattias IA Eklundh in the annual Freak Guitar Camp. This was really a significant meeting, tons of motivation and an exciting exchange between the orthodox and viking’s way of seeing music and life. At the end of the Freak Guitar Camp, he won the prize for best songwriting and guitar playing between the international participant’s group. In February 2004, moved to Barcelona, Spain, in order to obtain official music studies at “L’Aula de Música Moderna i Jazz del Coservatori del Liceu”. In 5 months completed half of the four year educational plan. Since the beginning of 2005 was invited to join the team of the leading spanish guitar magazine Guitarra Actual for ten consecutive issues with his personal monthly column “ Turbo Tech Guitar Workshop ”. Shortly after his graduation in Modern Music and Jazz in Barcelona, moved to Hollywood, CA in order to attend the worldwide renowned Guitar Institute of Technology (G.I.T., Musicians Institute, Hollywood), awarded with the Musicianship Scholarship and graduating as Honors Student. I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4