Vassilena Serafimova
Percusionist (Paris, France)
Biography
Born into a family of musicians in 1985, Vassilena Serafimova is the first Bulgarian percussionist to be awarded the Second Prize of the 56th ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the First Prize of the Fifth World International Marimba Competition in Stuttgart. She won the Grand Prix of the 10th International Competition Music and Earth as a soloist as well as the First Prize as a member of the Percussion Ensemble Accent, founded by her parents Avgustina and Simeon Serafimov. She received the Young Musician of the Year Award in Bulgaria in 2008 as well as the First Prize of the Music Critics in the 18th International Festival of Central Europe in Slovakia.
In 2014, Vassilena made her debut in Carnegie Hall of New York. One year later, together with Thomas Enhco (piano), she was the first marimba player in history to perform at the French Awards Ceremony Victoires de la Musique. In 2016, the duo recorded their first album titled Funambules for Deutsche Grammophon. Their second album Bach Mirror will be released in march 2021 for SONY CLASSICS.
Artistic director of International Marimba and Percussion Festival in Bulgaria as well as co-artistic director of the Paris Percussion Group, she is keen to defend the percussion repertoire all over the world.
In 2017 Vassilena and the renowned French electronic music producer Chloé were invited to create a Tribute to Steve Reich for the music series Variations. They were invited by Xavier Veilhan at the French Pavilion - Studio VENEZIA during the Venice Art Biennale 2017. The band toured extensively, recorded a 7" for French radio and are working on an album to be released in 2021 for Lumière Noire.
Vassilena has recorded for Radio France, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Bulgarian National Radio, RTBF and the Slovakian National Radio. Vassilena has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall (New York), Théâtre de Champs Elysées, Théâtre de Châtelet, Salle Pleyel (Paris), Hermitage Theater (Saint-Peterburg), Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam and Eindhoven), Herkulessaal (Munich), and Bulgaria Music Hall (Sofia)... She has been invited to numerous festivals including Les Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Classique au Vert (France), Middelheim Jazz Festival (Belgique), REpercusionES (Costa Rica), Focus! 2011 Festival (Etats-Unis), and TransART (Bulgaria)). She has been invited to teach masterclasses in Europe, Central and North America, and Asia.
Her curious nature lead her to participate in the Pyxis transdisciplinary project, searching and discovering a dialog between different art forms. This complex work significantly developed her imagination and is reflected in her way of performing.
Vassilena performs on ADAMS Alpha Series Marimbas. She is a Zildjian artist since 2014, and has created her own marimba mallets series with Vibrawell Mallets France.
She is teaching at HEMU in Lausanne and Maurice Ravel Conservatory in Paris.
Events
Une semaine d'échanges et de dialogues entre des lauréats du Concours de Genève et des professionnels du monde de la musique et de la scène, entre cas pratiques, exemples personnalisés et ouverture sur les aspects "indirectement artistiques" de la vie du jeune musicien.
This year’s Prizewinners’ Workshop 2020 was supposed to be held during the first week of May and bring together half a dozen recent prizewinners of the Geneva Competition (2019) along with a few students from the HEM, who are completing a Masters in specialized music performance as soloist. Due to the sanitary crisis caused by the Covid-19, this workshop could unfortunately not take place in person, despite it having been postponed to the month of September. The Geneva Competition therefore decided to innovate by offering a Prizewinners’ e-Workshop, which will be held online during more than a month.
The content of this e-Workshop has been adapted to fit the present circumstances and conditions of implementation, whilst maintaining its initial objectives and values. Privileging a method of personal coaching, it will focus on two main themes: career management and digital & audio-visual training.
This alternative experience will take place over a period of more than a month and will include personal evaluations, collective broadcasts, one-on-one interviews and times of independent work. During the last day of the Workshop, participants will be given the opportunity to meet up (hopeful in person) to share their experience with others and present their work. This final meeting will be a great way to reinforce the collective nature of the project, whereas the eWorkshop will be essentially run at a distance.
Participants in the eWorkshop will be given the mission of completing two distinct and complementary personal projects: the first one on the theme of career management and the second one resulting in the production of a short video. By addressing issues that are crucial to the development of a young musicians’ career, these projects follow the objectives fixed by the Geneva Competition’s Prizewinners Workshop since its creation in 2017.
The e-Workshop is managed by the Geneva Competition and its line producer ProMusica Concert Agency. Both of these entities provide recognized professional competences to participants (artistic management, financial management, production, communication, public relations, etc.), as well as an experience of several years in event organization.
The permanent team will be reinforced by specialists in multimedia, as well as a journalist- presenter and a technical manager. These personalities will form the reference team in charge of organizing and animating the eWorkshop.
This 4th edition of the Prizewinners workshop of the Concours Genève is supported by the Art Mentor Foundation (Luzern, Switzerland).