Rising star in the classical music world: German-Bulgarian percussionist Vivi Vassileva

Video from DW Classical Music

Rising star in the classical music world: German-Bulgarian percussionist Vivi Vassileva

"Vivi Vassileva's passion is percussion. The German-Bulgarian musician discovered her love of drumming as a child on a beach in Bulgaria and since then has dedicated her life to music. We caught up with her at a concert with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Marin Alsop in the Vienna Concert Hall.

Vivi Vassileva practices up to ten hours a day. She wants to show that percussion can not only be fast and loud, but that it is just as possible to make warm, melodious and romantic music on the marimba or vibraphone as on a violin or oboe. Vivi Vassileva has a broad musical horizon: she enjoys interpreting Bulgarian folk music just as much as Latin American rhythms or classical works by Bach and Mahler. In 2023, she won the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award and has been a sought-after soloist ever since.

In the video, she talks about the intensity of percussion playing, other famous female drummers, the flow she gets at concerts and, indeed, the question of why she eats three times more than all her friends. In addition, Marin Alsop, Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, tells us what makes Vivi Vassilev stand out as an artist. Together they are working on the piece “Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra” by Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha, which they will perform in the Vienna Concert Hall that evening.

Report by Meggin Leigh

© 2024 Deutsche Welle" from the video introduction

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