Ivaylo Dzhurov

Rousse-born, and trained first as a chamber singer at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague between 1991 and 1994, Ivaylo Dzhurov turned to the opera stage under Alexandrina Miltcheva. Bach's Easter Oratorio stands near the beginning of his concert work; on stage the roles are the bass repertory proper — Figaro and Leporello, Ramfis and Zaccaria, Banquo, Philip II, Colline, Escamillo — carried through Bulgarian seasons, a concert in Poznań in 2002 and long European touring runs of Aida. He has been a soloist of the State Opera in Stara Zagora since 2015, and made a commercial recording in Plovdiv for the Music Minus One series. He recorded with Nayden Todorov in 1998 and subsequently sang under him at Rousse and in Stara Zagora. After The Hague he continued at the Sacra professional academy in Sofia, taking up opera singing there and appearing publicly before he finished in 1997. His concert repertoire runs beyond Bach to the Mozart Requiem, lieder and arias by Schubert and music by Rachmaninov and Rossini, and he has been heard as a guest in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, France and Switzerland. The company's tour of the United States was announced as his first appearance in America. Djourov appeared as a bass soloist at the Thracia Summer Music Festival in Plovdiv in 1999 and 2000. His first concert appearance in the Bach came in 1996, and from 1998 he recorded and performed Church Slavonic chant and cantata-oratorio repertoire with the mixed choir and symphony orchestra of Bulgarian National Radio. Figaro, sung at Bruges in 2001, was his first role on stage, and Timur in Turandot belongs to the same repertory.