Zefira Valova

She has led Il Pomo d’Oro in concerts with countertenors Jakub Józef Orliński and Franco Fagioli, cellist Edgar Moreau and mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg. She has toured the USA and Europe with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. She is a guest concertmaster of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra under its musical director Aapo Häkkinen, focusing on Romantic repertoire. She was concertmaster of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, where she worked with Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Ton Koopman, Enrico Onofri, etc. She has performed and recorded concertos by Vivaldi and Telemann as a soloist and concertmaster with Les Ambassadeurs, directed by Alexis Kossenko. In 2020 she won the first prize at the José Herrando Baroque Violin Competition. Valova is the founder of the Sofia Baroque Arts Festival and received the Musician of the Year Award for Artistic Activity from Bulgarian National Radio in 2017, as well as the Golden Feather Award for Culture in 2021. Between 2016 and 2019, she led the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in programmes of 18th-century concertos. She graduated from the National Academy of Music in Sofia with Yosif Radionov, and from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Lucy van Dael.