Ина Кънчева

Ina Kancheva began as a six-year-old soloist in the Bulgarian National Radio's children's choir, and the schooling that followed — the State Academy of Music in Sofia, then the European Opera Centre in Manchester — gave her a repertoire running from the baroque through Mozart and bel canto into contemporary opera and song. A former member of the Stuttgart State Opera ensemble, she has sung at Covent Garden, La Scala, the Royal Danish Opera and the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, and at Ambronay, the Rossini Opera Festival and the Prague Spring; among her conductors are René Jacobs, Konrad Junghänel, Sir Neville Marriner and Vasily Petrenko. In July 2014 she recorded a disc of Pauline Viardot's songs for Toccata Classics with the pianist Ludmil Angelov; the disc was released in 2016. In Sofia she founded the Cultural Perspectives Foundation and, with it, the Culturama festival, which sets music beside the other arts and puts younger Bulgarian musicians in front of audiences. She belonged to the Stuttgart ensemble from 2006 to 2011, singing Violetta, Micaëla, Countess Adèle in Le comte Ory and Lucio Cinna in Lucio Silla there, with Pamina, Fiordiligi, Gilda and Liù sung elsewhere. Her training was completed on scholarships to the Arena di Verona foundation, the Accademia Chigiana and the Plácido Domingo centre at the Palau de les Arts, and in masterclasses with Montserrat Caballé, Raina Kabaivanska and Leo Nucci. She took prizes at the Pancho Vladigerov, Montserrat Caballé, Manuel Ausensi, Spiros Argiris and Viotti competitions and was named Musician of the Year in 2002.