
Vassilena Serafimova is a percussionist trained at the CNSMD in Paris and the Juilliard School in New York, after completing her father's percussion class in Bulgaria.
She won Second Prize at the ARD International Competition in Munich, First Prize at the World International Marimba Competition in Stuttgart, Grand Prize at FMAJI in France and at the "Music And Earth" International Competition in Bulgaria. She became "Musician of the Year 2008" in Bulgaria and won Second Prize in duo with Thomas Enhco at the Chamber Music Competition in Osaka, Japan in 2017.
Invited to give recitals and masterclasses in Europe, Central America, North America and Asia, Vassilena made her debut at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2014. A year later, in duo with jazz pianist Thomas Enhco, she made the marimba heard for the first time at France's Victoires de la musique classique awards. Their first duo album - Funambules - was released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2016. In 2021 the duo Thomas Enhco and Vassilena Serafimova recorded their second album - Bach Mirror - on SONY Classics. The album was a great success with both the media and the public.
Vassilena performs as soloist and chamber musician in numerous festivals: Les Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Classique au Vert (France), Middelheim Jazz Festival (Belgium), REpercusionES (Costa Rica), Focus! 2011 Festival (USA), and TransART (Bulgaria)) and has recorded for Radio France, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Bulgarian
National Radio. She has performed at 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), Bulgaria Music Hall (Sofia).
Artistic director of the Festival International de Marimba et Percussions de Bulgarie and co-artistic director of the Paris Percussion Group, she is committed to promoting the percussion repertoire worldwide.
In 2017 Vassilena formed an original duo with electro music producer Chloé. Invited to collaborate around the work of Steve Reich in the Variationsseries in 2017, the two musicians set off a few months later to explore a new repertoire at Xavier Veilhan's Studio VENEZIA. Since then, the duo has developed its own musical grammar, and performs internationally with their show Sequenza LIVE. Their homonymous album will be released in 2021 by Lumière Noire.
Vassilena represents Adams Musical Instruments, AvedisZildjian Compagny and has created her own series of mallets at Vibrawell Mallets which bears her name.
Vassilena holds a master's degree in pedagogy from the CNSMDP, teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne and has been a guest professor at the Conservatoire National Régional de Saint-Maur-des-Fossées since 2022.
She plays Adams Alpha Series Marimbas and Vibrawell mallets.