George Vassilev

GEORGE VASSILEV (www.george-vassilev.com) was born in Varna, Bulgaria. He began guitar lessons with Lijuben Haralambiev in his home town. In 1987, thanks to a grant from the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, he continued his education at the Kiev Conservatory with Nikolay Mikhailenko. Later, he studied with Maria Livia São Marcos at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, and graduated with the “Premier Prix de Virtuosité”, and received the “Master concert diploma” from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, having studied there with Ingolf Olsen.

He is the First Prize winner of five prestigious international guitar competitions such as the Geneva International Competition for Musical Performers (CIEM), Switzerland; “Silesian Guitar Autumn”, Poland; “Maria Canals de Barcelona”, Spain; “Città di Alessandria”, Italy and others. George Vassilev has performed in prestigious music venues worldwide, including St- Petersburg’s Hermitage; Sydney Opera House; Melbourne Arts Centre; Royal Festival Hall, London; Victoria Hall, Geneva; New Opera House, Copenhagen; and the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. He has collaborated with concert managers such as The Springboard Concert Trust, LACCS and IMG Artists in U.K. and “Georg Hörtnagel’s Konzertdirektion” in Germany. As a soloist he has performed with orchestras such as the St. Petersburg Hermitage Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Italy, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Sofia Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Danish Orchestra, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Mr.Vassilev is also very active as a chamber musician and has given concerts throughout Europe, Brazil, the United States and Australia with a number of world- renowned musicians, such as James Crabb (accordion), Richard Tognetti (violin), Brigitte Fournier (soprano), Stéphane Chapuis (bandoneon), Irina-Kalina Goudeva (double bass), Elmira Darvarova (violin), Lionel Monnet (piano), Ejnar Kanding (composition), Boris Berezovski (piano), Ute Lemper (voice), and Emanuel Pahud (flute). Mr. Vassilev has released 15 CDs, distributed by companies such as Fidesson, Artlab, Swiss Radio International in Switzerland; Mega Sofia in Bulgaria, DACAPO in Denmark, MHR in Australia, or by his own audio recording label GVRecords (www.gvrecords.info).