Biography

Nikolay Borchev was born in 1980 in Pinsk/Belarus. He began his musical training from the age of seven in the disciplines of piano, flute and organ in Moscow. When he was just sixteen years old he began his singing schooling at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied with Maria Aria and Pavel Lisitsian. In 1998 he won first prize at the "Bella voce" international signing competition in Moscow.

Nikolay Borchev then went on to study at the "Hanns Eisler" Academy of Music in Berlin with Heinz Reeh, Julia Varady and Wolfram Rieger and attended countless master classes, including with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Margreet Honig and Philip Langridge. In May 2002 he won a prize at the "Sylvia Geszty" International Singing Competition in Murcia and took part in the "Festival Academie Européenne de Musique d'Aix-en-Provence" in Summer 2002. The Association for the Promotion of the "Hanns Eisler" Academy of Music also awarded him the first ever "startup!music" prize in 2002.

Even during his studies Nikolay Borchev worked on his extensive repertoire of concerts and songs, which ranges from Bach, to Händel, Brahms, Schubert and Fauré down to Mahler and Pärt.

In 2003 Nikolay Borchev became a member of the Jungen Ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and as a result of this he was accepted into the local ensemble during the 2004/05 season. At the Bavarian State Opera he worked with directors such as Richard Jones, Peter Mussbach, Christof Loy, Andreas Homoki and David Alden and appeared here in roles like Moralès (Carmen), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Dandini (La Cenerentola) and Prosdocimo (Il turco in Italia). He played the part of Angelo in the premiere of Arnaldo de Felices' Medusa. During the 2007/08 season he will make his debut as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and as Harlekin in a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos during the Opera Festival in 2008.

In Summer 2006 he made his first appearance at the Schwetzingen Festival as Pluto in Josef Martin Kraus' Proserpina. At the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in the same year he made his debut in Händel's Das Alexanderfest under René Jacobs. The director then invited Nikolay Borchev to sing in the Mozart Year of 2006 in his production of Don Giovanni at the Innsbruck Festival Weeks for Ancient Music and the Festival Theatre in Baden-Baden, as well as at the subsequent studio recording as Masetto in Harmonia Mundi. In December 2006 Nikolay Borchev debuted as Marcello in Peter Konwitschny's staging of La bohème at the Leipzig Opera House.

In 2007 he made his debut at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in the role of Moritz in the world premiere of Benoît Mernier's Frühlings Erwachen. He also sang the title role in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria as well performing as Papageno. In February 2008 he will be appearing as Monteverdi's Orfeo in a new production by Jan Bosse at the Basel Theatre conducted by Andrea Marcon.

So far he has worked with orchestras including the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Berlin Academy for Ancient Music, the London Mozart Players, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Saarland Radio Symphony Orchestra, the RSO and the DSO Berlin and sang under directors like Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Marcello Viotti, Ivor Bolton, Friedrich Haider, Helmut Rilling, Marek Janowski, Andreas Spering, Frédéric Chaslin, Christoph Poppen and Fabio Armiliato.