by Marian Draganov

SOFIA, May 3 (Xinhua) -- A blind young Bulgarian musician, Olga Koeva, 19, shows how strong the human will, talent and dreams can be.

Starting playing the piano when she was five, she has won many international competitions. Now, graduating from the National School of Music "Lyubomir Pipkov", once again impressed the audience during her farewell concert.

"I am astonished by her ability to not only find the keys, but to recreate the character of the music, to touch the sound, the exact sound of the particular play," Stefka Matanova, the teacher of Olga Koeva has told Xinhua.

Matanova said it very difficult, presumably, for such people to have a rapid movement to reach the key, and play a tone that is sometimes soft and sometimes passionate.

But against all odds, "Koeva manages to do it," Matanova said.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Koeva said that she has chosen to play the piano because the keyboard literature is generally very rich, very extensive.

She said she also likes the sound itself, the timbre of the piano, which can imitate a whole symphony orchestra with its timbres.

However, Koeva's dream is not to attack the concert stages and make a worldwide career as a pianist. Since 2009, she began studying organ and she links her future with this particular instrument.

"I would like to study church music, to become an organist in a church, a church musician," Koeva said, adding that "these are my dreams and these are my plans for the future."

"When I hear music in the church, especially in the Catholic Church, especially organ works and liturgies, it seems that I am going to a different world where I forget about the everyday cares; I begin to think about the meaning of life; to ask philosophical questions -- who we are, where we are, and so on," Koeva said.

Studying church music include playing organ, conducting a choir, singing, and music theory, all of which are challenging tasks for normal people, let alone a blind girl.

To realize her dream of becoming a teacher of solfeggio and harmony, Koeva would first study Church Music at the University of Regensburg, Germany.

Though she will have no language barrier as she speaks German, Koeva will take six exams in July to be enlisted in the school, including organ, organ improvisations and playing church hymns, singing, choral conducting and theory, oral and written.

A future-oriented person, she said neither playing the piano nor everyday trivialities would daunt her.

"The hardest thing for me in general would be to conduct grand choral works for soloists, choir and orchestra: I think it would be impossible, because my brain would not take a whole choral, orchestral score, plus parties of the soloists," Koeva said.