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It is rare to find a marimba player in the world who pursues the possibilities of this instrument so deeply. When you listen to her delicate and pleasantly fluctuating tremolo, the concept of the marimba as a percussion instrument is instantly overturned. She is the most sought-after marimba player in the world today, captivating audiences with her versatile expressiveness and flexible playing technique, and creating a genre-independent repertoire with her skillful arranging abilities.
Ria began playing marimba and piano at the age of 6 in her hometown of Kumamoto, Japan, and has been arranging music since her childhood based on her special talent of being able to play without sheet music once she hears it. 18 years old, she went to Paris, France to study at the Paris Conservatoire (CNR), and won first prize at the 1st International Marimba Competition in Paris in 2003. She has performed at some of the most prestigious chamber music festivals in the world, unprecedented for a marimba player, including the Bürgenstock Festival (Switzerland), Rolandzeck International Music Festival (Germany), Zagreb International Music Festival (Croatia), Salon-de-Provence International Music Festival (France), Evermay Chamber Music Project (USA), and Pharos International Chamber Music Festival (Cyprus), performing with Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Andreas Ottensamer, François Leleux, Eric Le Sage,Guy Braunstein, Daishin Kashimoto,Boris Brovtsyn,Nabil Shehata and others. In Japan, together with guitarist Kaori Muraji, Ria has created many new duo repertoire of guitar and marimba.
Since 2012, Ria Ideta has been a resident artist of the Munich Chamber Opera, performing various operas with the world’s first chamber orchestra including marimba, which has been attracting much attention in various places.
Ria is also actively involved in commissioning activities, and has been involved in the world premieres of many works – marimba concerto “SUGARIA” by Eric Sammut(2007, France), marimba concerto by Ohad Ben-Ari with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kazuki Yamada (2014, Japan), and “Sawa Sawa” for marimba and chorus by Dai Fujikura with the Polish Radio Choir at the Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival (2017, UK). Ria has studied with Yoshihiko Mizuno, Emmanuel Séjourné, and Eric Sammut. Ria Ideta is a visiting professor at the Heisei College of Music(Japan) and the London Academy of Arts (UK), living in Berlin.
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.
She has recorded for Radio France, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Bulgarian National Radio, 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.
In 2013 Vassilena co-founded the Paris Percussion Group with Jean-Baptiste Leclère – a new ensemble of twelve percussionists uniting the young French generation of percussionists. She is also the artistic director and co-founder of the International Marimba And Percussion Festival in Bulgaria (2009, 2012, 2014).
Vassilena’s inspiration, mentors and teachers include the following musicians: Simeon Serafimov, Sylvio Gualda, Keiko Abe, Bogdan Bacanu, Momoko Kamiya, Chantal Stigliani, Katarzyna Mycka, Michel Cerutti, Florent Jodelet, Gordon Gottlieb, Daniel Druckman, Tatiana Koleva, Nebojsa Zivkovic, Jeff Malarsky…
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.