Stefania Ruseva

Stefania Ruseva was born in 2001 in Stara Zagora, where she graduated from the National School of Music and Performing Arts “Hristina Morfova” with a major in Piano. In June 2024, she graduated with full honors from the National Academy of Music “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov,” earning degrees in Choral Conducting in the class of Prof. Dr. Teodora Pavlovich and in Music Theory with a specialization in Musical Analysis under Prof. Dr. Snezhina Vrangova. She studied piano with Prof. Dr. Rostislav Yovchev and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Margarita Ilieva.

In 2023, through the “Mobility” program, she was accepted to study for one semester at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) in the Choral Conducting class of Prof. Alois Glaßner, where she was also a member of the Webern Kammerchor. In the final year of her master’s program, she studied orchestral conducting in the class of Prof. Dr. Grigor Palikarov. Since March 2025, she has been a full-time doctoral student in Choral Conducting at the National Academy of Music “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov.”

Since October 2024, she has been a choirmaster at the Stara Zagora State Opera.

She is an assistant conductor of the choir at the Late Antique Basilica “St. Sophia” in Sofia.

She was selected as a chorister in the European Youth Choir “EuroChoir” for the 2024 session, working with conductors Marco Amherd (Switzerland) and Donka Miteva (Germany, Bulgaria).

In December 2024, she participated in a conducting workshop with Collegium Musicum Berlin under the direction of Donka Miteva in Sofia.

She completed a masterclass in choral conducting with Yuval Weinberg (Israel, Germany) in Sofia in 2022 and was a scholarship holder at the Creative Laboratory for Choral Music “Maestro Krikor Chetingyan” in Plovdiv in 2021, under the guidance of Krastin Nastev and Sergey Pavlov.

She has performed as a member of the Mixed Chamber Choir “Prof. Georgi Dimitrov” at the Faculty of Theory, Composition, and Conducting of the National Academy of Music, the Sofia Chamber Choir “Vasil Arnaudov,” and served as a répétiteur for the early music vocal ensemble “Cantanti Dai Monti Verdi.”

As a pianist, she is a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, including the National Academic Competition “Bach and His Contemporaries” – Plovdiv (2020); the National Competition for Young Instrumentalists and Singers “Svetoslav Obretenov” – Provadia (2016, 2014); the National Competition for the Performance of a Bulgarian Musical Work “Varban Varbanov” (2014, 2016); the International Piano Competition “Classics and Modernity” – Stara Zagora (2014), among others. She has completed masterclasses with Prof. Tatevik Mokatsyan (Armenia), the “Et Arsis Piano Quartet” (Germany), Acad. Prof. Dr. Atanas Kurtev, Prof. Maria Prinz, and others.

She has repeatedly appeared as a soloist with the orchestra of the Stara Zagora State Opera, giving two Bulgarian premiere performances—Concierto fantástico by Isaac Albéniz (2018) and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Arabic Themes by Azerbaijani composers Fikret Amirov and Elmira Nazirova (2019)—as well as two local premieres in Stara Zagora: the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Dimitar Hristov (2017) and Prelude, Aria and Toccata for piano and orchestra by Marin Goleminov (2024).

She has participated in events of the International Festival “Sofia Music Weeks,” the “Brazilian Classical Music Festival,” the “European Music Festival,” the Bach Society in Bulgaria Foundation, the Minyu Balkanski Foundation, and others.

She has taken part in concert and recording projects with the Sofia Philharmonic, the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the New Symphony Orchestra, Symphonietta Vratsa, and others.

She gives solo piano recitals and participates in numerous concerts and festivals as a soloist and chamber musician.

She has made recordings of contemporary music.