Nicky Spence
Tenor Nicky Spence renounced a flourishing career as a crossover singer to build a presence in opera. He has appeared widely in opera houses around Britain, the U.S., and continental Europe.
Spence was born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1983. He started performing as a child and won a local singing competition when he was 14. He worked at a fish-and-chips shop to save money to attend the nearby Wallace Hall Academy, where he studied with Margaret Davies and was also exposed to national theater companies. Spence enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he won the Kathleen Ferrier Scholarship Award. He graduated in 2005, having already received and accepted an offer from the Universal Classics and Jazz label, which wanted to bill him as "the Scottish tenor." Spence released his debut album, My First Love, in 2006.
That album garnered Spence several awards, and he appeared on British television and on tour with pop singer Shirley Bassey. At that point, however, Spence unexpectedly rebooted his career, returning to Guildhall and enrolling in its traditional opera studies program, studying with John Llewelyn Evans. His instincts were vindicated as he won a place at Britain's National Opera Studio in 2009 and was awarded the Bruce Millar Gulliver Opera Prize. The following year, Spence earned a place in the permanent company of the English National Opera. He had major parts with that company in the 2010s, creating the role of Brian in Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys in 2011 and appearing as Francesco in Berlioz's opera Benvenuto Cellini in a 2015 production by film director Terry Gilliam. He was heard during this period on recorded song recitals on the Naxos, Stone, and Chandos labels. Spence reprised his Muhly role at the Metropolitan Opera in 2013 and has gone on to appear at prestigious international houses such as the Frankfurt Opera (in Rossini's La gazza ladra, 2014) and the Opéra de Lyon in France (in Janáček's The House of the Dead, 2019). He has appeared on recordings on the Hyperion, Resonus Classics, and Albion labels, notably on the latter in two volumes of folk song settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 2020 and 2021. During the pandemic of those years, Spence served as a volunteer vaccinator.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Artistas semelhantes
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Die schöne Müllerin D. 795: XII. Pause
Nicky Spence, Christopher Glynn
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Signum Records em 10 de mai. de 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Jonathan Dove: Song Cycles
Classical - Lançado por Naxos em 5 de ago. de 2014
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Paradis sur terre: A French Songbook
Nicky Spence, Malcolm Martineau
Classical - Lançado por Chandos em 1 de abr. de 2016
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hoddinott: Landscapes
Nicky Spence, Claire Booth, Andrew Matthews-Owen, Jeremy Huw Williams, Michael Pollock
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Naxos em 1 de out. de 2010
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Any Little Fish
Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Joseph Middleton
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Signum Records em 19 de out. de 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge & Other Songs
Classical - Lançado por Hyperion em 1 de abr. de 2022
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38, Pt 2: But hark! upon my sense
Gabrieli Consort, Nicky Spence, Anna Stephany
Classical - Lançado por Signum Records em 14 de mar. de 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Janáček: The Diary of One Who Disappeared; Nursery Rhymes; Moravian Folk Poetry
Classical - Lançado por Hyperion em 28 de jun. de 2019
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Die schöne Müllerin D. 795: XVII. Die böse Farbe
Nicky Spence, Christopher Glynn
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Signum Records em 21 de abr. de 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Fantasy
Rhona Mckail, Nicky Spence, Kaoru Yamada, Sholto Kynoch
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Lançado por Stone Records em 12 de jul. de 2011
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
R. Strauss: Complete Songs, Vol. 8
Nicky Spence, Rebecca Evans, Roger Vignoles
Classical - Lançado por Hyperion em 28 de jul. de 2017
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo