Sofia Vinnik, mezzo-soprano, born 1996 in Munich, started her studies as a junior student at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich with her teacher Marilyn Schmiege. Since 2016 she is studying at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg with Christoph Strehl and in the Lied class of Pauliina Tukiainen. She sang in the Bad Reichenhall Theater with the Bad Reichenhaller Philharmonie and in the Philharmonie Gasteig with the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists. In addition to opera, the young singer also has a great passion for Kunstlied. She performed songs of G. Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn as part of the Concert Series of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheater Wien, since 2017 she is giving recitals at the Mittwoch Klassik in Ingolstadt. In 2019 Sofia Vinnik performed songs by I. Aboulker, P. Viardot and C. Schumann at the Bonner Schumannfest. She is one of the finalists of the Louis Spohr Singing Competition in Kassel 2018 and the International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti in Innsbruck 2018. In November 2018 she won the LOTTO Foundation’s Sponsorship Prize in the German Singing Competition of Bundeswettbewerb Gesang 2018 in Berlin. Sofia Vinnik is a scholarship holder of the Bad Reichenhall Vocal Academy and works in conjunction with the Gstaad Vocal Academy  and the Cecilia Bartoli Music Foundation with Silvana Bazzoni-Bartoli. Since July 2018 she is a scholarship holder of Yehudi Munuhin’s Live Music Now Foundation in Salzburg.

Magdalena Kožená was born in the Czech city of Brno and studied voice and piano at the Brno Conservatory and later with Eva Bláhová at Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts. She has been awarded several major prizes both in the Czech Republic and internationally, culminating in the Sixth International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995.

Magdalena was signed by Deutsche Grammophon in 1999 and immediately released her first album of Bach arias on its Archiv label. Her recital debut recording, an album of songs by Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů, appeared on Deutsche Grammophon’s yellow label in 2001 and was honoured with Gramophone’s Solo Vocal Award. She was named Artist of the Year by Gramophone in 2004 and has won numerous other awards since, including the Echo Award, Record Academy Prize, Tokyo, and Diapason d’or. In 2017 she began a long-term relationship with Dutch classical music label Pentatone. In May 2019 she released her first album with them; ‘Il Giardino dei sospiri’ with secular cantatas on tragic love by Handel, Leo, Marcello, Gasparini, Vince and Sarro, accompanied by harpsichordist Václav Luks and the Czech baroque orchestra Collegium 1704.

Magdalena has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors, Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Roger Norrington. Her list of distinguished recital partners includes the pianists Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Malcolm Martineau, András Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida, with whom she has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals. Magdalena’s understanding of historical performance practices has been cultivated in collaboration with outstanding period-instrument ensembles, including the English Baroque Soloists, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Il Giardino Armonico, Les Musiciens du Louvre, La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Venice Baroque Orchestra and Le Concert d’Astrée. She is also in demand as soloist with the Berlin, Vienna and Czech Philharmonics and the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras.

Magdalena’s operatic engagements include the Salzburger Festspiele, the Glyndebourne Festival, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin to name but a few.

Magdalena was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2003 for her services to French music.

Mezzo Soprano, Giulia Laudano has been singing since she was eight and was a chorister with International Voices of Enfield Choir. She was a Music Scholar at Dame Alice Owen’s School, Hertfordshire and studied concurrently at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. Her awards have included the National Association of Choirs Cup for Future Talent, the Smythe Cup for Excellence, the John Rutter Award for Superb Musicianship, the Jack Petchey Leadership Award and the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize 2017.

She is now in her fourth year on the BMus programme at the Royal Academy of Music studying with Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Chad Vindin.

Giulia will be working on the role of Sesto from Handel’s Giulio Cesare at RAM’s Opera scenes and has also worked on the roles of Dorabella and Meg in scenes from Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte and Verdi’s Falstaff on an Italian Intensive Opera Course run by Isabella Radcliffe and Philip Thomas. She also participated in a workshop on The Magic Flute with British Youth Opera, singing the role of Third Lady.

Giulia is a soloist and chorus member in the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series at RAM and is also a member of the Royal Academy Song Circle where she recently performed in a concert with them at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

She has also recently participated in a masterclass with Angelika Kirschlager at the RAM.

Giulia has already gained much experience on the concert platform at venues including the Austrian Cultural Forum Knightsbridge, the Salvation Army Hall Oxford Street, Eton College Chapel, Selwyn College, Cambridge, il Duomo in Milan, and several cathedrals in the UK.
Giulia will be performing as a soloist with the Enfield Chamber Orchestra in November singing a selection of songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and a collection of Mozart arias.