Welsh National Opera is delighted to be working with the renowned and multi award-winning tenor Nicky Spence again this Autumn, in a concert with the combined forces of WNO Conductor Laureate, Carlo Rizzi and WNO Orchestra. Next Spring, Nicky will join the Company again, in an eagerly awaited lead role debut in a brand-new production of Britten’s operatic masterpiece, Peter Grimes.
A proud Scot, Nicky hails from Dumfries & Galloway. He won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, continuing his training at the National Opera Studio and becoming an inaugural Harewood Artist at English National Opera.
Nicky made his debut with WNO in 2014 in Moses in Egypt and William Tell. Returning in 2022 as Albert Gregor in the five-star critically acclaimed production of Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair, directed by Olivia Fuchs. He has since specialised in the works of Janáček, Wagner and Beethoven, working with Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé, and with Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO. Nicky has become one of Britain’s brightest and most sought-after tenors.
WNO is thrilled that Nicky can join us as the soloist at a major WNO concert at Cardiff’s Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama this November, to be conducted by Carlo Rizzi, one of the world’s leading opera conductors, with WNO’s internationally renowned Orchestra. He will sing Samuel Barber’s most celebrated and emotionally intimate pieces, a bittersweet, nostalgic meditation on childhood summer evenings, a ‘lyric rhapsody’ Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The Times described Nicky as 'a tenor who combines heroic tone and a poetic sensibility that takes the breath away', so it seems fitting that Barber’s piece is based on a poem.
In 2020 Nicky won both the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award and Gramophone’s Solo Vocal Award. By 2022, Nicky was awarded BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year for his work as a tireless ambassador for opera and encouraging young talent through the Scottish Opera Young Company. He also supports fellow musicians through the Independent Society for Musicians and his teaching of international masterclasses and as visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music.
Nicky was made an OBE in the King's first Birthday Honours in 2023 for services to Music and received the Singer Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2024.
Be sure to join Nicky Spence and Carlo Rizzi with WNO Orchestra on 9 & 10 November at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama; and book your tickets to hear Nicky as the titular hero in the iconic opera Peter Grimesfrom 5 April as part of WNO’s Spring 2025 Season.
