Valentina Seferinova – piano

Award winning pianist Valentina Seferinova, hailed as a talented child prodigy, gave her first public performance at the age of eight; and her first performance as a soloist with orchestra when twelve years old, performing Haydn’s D Major Concerto with her home town orchestra, the Vidin Philharmonic.  She studied under Professor Dr Lubomir Dinolov at the Bulgarian State Conservatory in Sofia, later becoming Assistant Professor of Performance there at the age of twenty-seven.  A frequent performer on Bulgarian National Radio and Television, her reputation for the interpretation of works by Romantic era composers soon spread outside Bulgaria and led to the rare honour of being invited by the Parisian Trustees of the Claude Debussy House and Museum to give the annual Anniversary Recital on 21st August 1999 with fellow pianist, Emilia Mihaylova, in the auditorium, previously the composer’s bedroom, at his house in St. Germain-en-Laye.  This was quickly followed by an invitation to give a private solo performance for the AGM of the International Rachmaninov Society, whose President at the time was the Russian maestro, Vladimir Ashkenazy.  Valentina was subsequently invited to give three further recitals for the Society (1999, 2005, 2009) – including one in London in the presence of two of the composer’s great grand-children, which earned her a standing ovation.

Her career continued with performances across Europe including Russia, Poland, the UK and Turkey.  Valentina quickly garnered a reputation not only for the ‘classics’, but for championing those ‘long lost’ composers whose works she felt had been unjustly ignored.  Such an interest and reputation resulted in recording contracts with a number of European record companies, chief amongst these being the Polish label Acte Préalable with whom she has recorded five CDs comprising music by Zygmunt Noskowski and the complete extant solo piano music of Ludomir Rozycki.

She now lives in the UK where, among her many teaching responsibilities, she is a Lecturer in the Music Faculty of Southampton University. 

Her free time is devoted to her British husband, raising a family and dog walking. 

More information can be found at www.ValentinaSeferinova.com and some of her performances from the last 20 years may be viewed on her YouTube channel.