Barbara Kozelj performs in London, Tokio, Amsterdam and The Hague

The internationally established Slovenian mezzo-soprano Barbara Kozelj will be performing in the following months at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Royal Theatre in The Hague, NHK Hall in Tokio and the Middle Temple Hall in London and other venues. Her musical program will feature music by J. S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hugo Wolf and Leoš Janáček.

In December she will perform Bach's Magnificat in D major BWV 243 at Tokio's NHK Hall together with the Balthasar Neumann Choir & Soloists and the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock. Other highlights of the season include a brand-new baroque opera production presented by Opera2day in January 2019. Barbara Kozelj will perform with the Orchestra of the Netherlands Bach Society (Nederlandse Bachvereniging - NBV) under the musical direction of Hernán Schvartzman in a show, which features opera music by Antonio Vivaldi. The Venetian composer's most thrilling arias are combined in a new libretto and tell an equally thrilling story, based on the illustrious epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Later, in April, she will be accompanied in a song recital by pianist Julius Drake at the Concertgebouw. The recital titled The Spanish Songbook will focus on songs by Spanish composers such as Joaquín Rodrigo, Enrique Granados and Joaquin Turina among others, and also include some Berg, Wolf and Korngold.

Recently she toured across the United States performing Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of which a CD recording was released in June 2018 by the Channel Classics label. Together with Anna Lucia Richter and the Pro Musica women's choir Kozelj performed under the direction of Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer.

In recent years, Barbara Kozelj has established herself as a charismatic and versatile soloist and musician. Her international career took off following her debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2013. A Carnegie Hall debut the year after in Bach’s Matthäus-Passion with Iván Fischer received critical acclaim. In 2015 she was applauded for her role debut as Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr at the Festival Enescu Bucharest and in London’s Barbican hall, next to Ian Bostridge as Ulisse. The press praised her for “a beautifully calm demeanour, combined with a deep expressivity in the way she sang Monteverdi”. Barbara regularly performs with Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra.

She made her BBC Proms debut as the alto soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and joined the orchestra on a European tour as the Third Lady in The Magic Flute, which she performed in Budapest, Amsterdam, London, Bruges, Baden-Baden, Berlin and San Sebastian.

She has distinguished herself in opera roles such as Ruggiero, Cyrus, Galatea and Juno (Händel), Orfeo (Gluck), Donna Elvira and Dorabella (Mozart), L’Enfant (Ravel), Flosshilde (Wagner), Page (R.Strauss), Kasturbai and Mrs. Alexander (Glass), and Néris (Cherubini). She performed in opera houses of Essen, Bonn and Amsterdam, at the St. Moritz Opera Festival and The Ministry of Operatic Affairs.

In concert she has given critically acclaimed performances of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Elgar’s Sea pictures, Berlioz’ Les Nuit d été, Brahms’ Alt-Rhapsodie and Verdi’s and Duruflé’s Requiem among others and finds herself at home in an extensive oratorio repertoire of Händel and Bach, especially Matthäus-Passion, one of her musical kindred spirits.