COUNTERTENOR
Countertenor Nicolò Balducci approached the study of singing under the guidance of soprano Anna Maria Stella Pansini. He graduated with top marks, specialising with soprano Gemma Bertagnolli at the Conservatory of Vicenza. He took part in several masterclasses on the performance practice of the ancient repertoire: he attended the Vivaldi Academy at the Cini Foundation in Venice and won the ‘Evelin Zubin’ scholarship for the advanced course for baroque voices at the Stradella Festival in Viterbo. In 2021, he was a student at the ‘Rodolfo Celletti’ Belcanto Academy at the Festival della Valle d’Itria.
Born in Canosa di Puglia in 1999, he has won several international competitions: “Cesti” Baroque Singing Competition (third prize and young artist prize), “Renata Tebaldi Competition” (first prize and young artist prize), “Niccoló Piccinni Competition” (first prize), “Concorso Traetta”, “VoceallOpera”, “Fatima Terzo Prize” and “Voci Olimpiche” under the artistic direction of Andrea Marcon, which led him to debut the role of Oberto in G. F. Händel’s Alcina. F. Händel broadcast on Rai 5 from the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. In 2020, the international record company BIS invites him to make two exclusive solo recordings together with Dan Laurin, harpsichordist Anna Paradiso and the ‘Baroque Academy Gothenburg Symphony’ with unpublished cantatas of the Neapolitan School and masterpieces of the Baroque repertoire, to be released in 2022/2023. A new disc for voice and fortepiano is in preparation.
Recent engagements include his debut as Nero in the Coronation of Poppea at the Palau des les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, conductor Alarçon, director Ted Huffman. At the Ravenna Festival he sang in concert with the Ensemble Salomone Rossi, in the 17th-century repertoire of Jewish sacred music. In Ferrara he made his debut at the end of June in the part of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, conductor Massimo Raccanelli. In October 2023, Balducci sang in Zingarelli’s opera Giulietta e Romeo at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, conductor Stefan Plewniak, where he had already appeared in concert, and where in December 2023 he again sang Nero in Poppea’s Coronation, with the ensemble Les Épopées, also recorded on CD, and G.F.Handel’s Messiah. In addition, at the Teatro Sociale in Rovigo, he sang in the premiere in modern time of Ristori’s Pigmalione. His next engagements include Mitridate re di Ponto at the Landstheater in Salzburg and Coronation of Poppea in Toulon and Cologne.
In 2022, a tour in Sweden saw Balducci perform in the country’s major theatres including the Concert Hall in Gothenburg and the Palladium Theatre in Malmö, a tour in France with Maestro Giovanni Togni performing a programme in Hebrew with music by Benedetto Marcello and Salomone Rossi in French synagogues, collaboration in a theatrical performance directed by Stefania Bonfadelli in the role of Farinelli with La Toscanini staged at the Teatro Farnese in Parma, a solo recital at the Stockholm Baroque Festival (SEMF), and the debut at the Festival della Valle D’Itria in Cavalli’s Xerse conducted by F. M. Sardelli directed by Leo Muscato. Balducci also took part in a tour of performances in Italy, Switzerland and Germany with the Orchestra Toscanini di Parma as soloist in Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater and lent his voice in the soundtrack of Marco Bellocchio’s film ‘Rapito’, with music by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso.
