Rising star Nika Gorič

Young soprano Nika Gorič has increasingly been recognised as an indispensable presence on the international classical music stage. Important career highlights have established her as a visible soprano virtuoso in the opera milieu as well as contemporary music scene.

Together with fellow musicians, the clarinettist Franck Russo and pianist Aurèle Marthan, she is currently recording a CD in Aix-en-Provence. The recording will feature music by Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert from the FrühlingsProjekt, which she performed at the French street music festival, Festival dans la rue, in Aix-en-Provence in August.

In September she will be performing a dazzling array of opera arias by Gluck, Handel, Mozart and Berg with Orlando Jopling at the Roman River Music Festival, where she will also perform the solo part in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, in the world premiere of a new orchestration by Iain Farrington.

In October and November Nika will be covering the role of Gilda at the Scottish Opera in the award-winning director Matthew Richardson's and award-winning designer Jon Morrell's revival of the 2011 production of Verdi's Rigoletto. In the coming season she will take the stage at different concert venues and festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival, Music Biennale Zagreb and the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

Nika Gorič studied at the Maribor Music and Ballet Secondary Conservatory, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she completed her studies with Lillian Watson and Jonathan Papp. In 2016 she joined Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project singing Titania in a new production of The Fairy Queen after themes by Purcell. Nominated by the Salzburg Festival to take part in the Stella Maris International Vocal Competition, she went on to win a recital at Vienna’s Musikverein. In 2017 she received The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence at the Royal Academy of Music.

Engagements during 2018-19 included a concert tour of China with Salzburger Festspiele and Gilda in Rigoletto with Scottish Opera. Recent engagements include Italienische Sängerin in Garsington’s Capriccio, appearances as soloist with the Australian Chamber and Slovene Philharmonic Orchestras, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, performances at the Philharmonic Hall Liverpool and Usher Hall Edinburgh. Her recent Philharmonia Orchestra debut at the Royal Festival Hall London with Vito Žuraj’s Ubuquité, whose Book of Bodies she performed with the Slovene Philharmonic String Chamber Orchestra, shows her interest for contemporary repertoire and regular collaboration with living composers. Her expressive range and virtuosity were praised in various reviews.

"Žuraj’s twenty-minute expressionist tirade of eruptive singing and playing is a bit like Pierrot Lunaire on steroids and laughing gas. Nika Gorič negotiated its demands with a virtuosic savagery that showed off her florid coloratura and impressive range…"
Peter Reed for Classicalsource.com / Ubuquity, Philharmonia, Royal Festival Hall / April 2018

Nika’s operatic roles include Norina (Don Pasquale), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Fortuna and Pallade in L’incoronazione di Poppea, both conducted by Jane Glover. She also performed in the role of Polly Peachum in The Threepenny Opera conducted by Walter Sutcliffe, and Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, among others.