Nicolò Balducci & Anna Paradiso
Biography Nicolò Balducci & Anna Paradiso
Nicolo Balducci
born in 1999, Italian countertenor Nicolò Balducci is quickly establishing himself on the international concert and opera stages, garnering praise for ‘singing with a sense of enjoyment and freedom’ (Opera Wire, USA) and his ‘crystalline timbre… the athleticism of his coloratura is enviable’ (Gramophone Magazine). He is winner of the 1stPrize and Young Artist Prize at the 2022 Renata Tebaldi Competition, 3rd Prize and Young Artist Award at the 2022 Cesti Competition Innsbruck and 1st Prize at the 2021 Concorso Niccolò Piccinni. He is semifinalist at Operalia Competition 2023.
Highlights in 2023/24 include role debuts as Gilbert/Roméo et Juliette by Zingarelli and Imeneo/Gloria e Imeneo by Vivaldi, Nerone in a concert version of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and concerts of Handel’s Messiah, all at Château de Versailles. Furthermore, he will sing the role of Morte Eterna in Draghi’s oratorio Il Dono della Vita eterna at Festival d’Ambronay, conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón, Barzane in Vivaldi’s Arsilda with La Cetra and Andrea Marcon in concert in Basel, give his role and house debut at Landestheater Salzburg as Lucio Cinna in Mozart’s Lucio Silla, his house debuts as Nerone at Oper Köln and at Opéra de Toulon in Ted Huffman’s celebrated production of L’incoronazione di Poppea and appear in Ristori’s Pigmalione at Teatro Sociale di Rovigo.
Last season, Nicolò Balducci gave role and house debuts as Nerone/L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, and at the Innsbrucker Festwochen as Osmino/La fida ninfa by Vivaldi, sang Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro at the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara and a series of concerts throughout Sweden, together with Dan Laurin and Anna Paradiso, including the Stockholm Early Music Festival.
Nicolò Balducci is an exclusive artist with Swedish record label BIS Records (Apple Music).
His first solo CD, “Castrapolis - Neapolitan Cantatas and Arias”, was released in 2022, followed by the album “Amore Dolore -Countertenor Arias” in March 2023. Another solo album is scheduled to be released in late 2024.
Nicolò Balducci holds a bachelor’s degree from the Conservatory of Matera and a Master’s degree with honours in Baroque singing from the Conservatory of Vicenza, where he studied with Professor Gemma Bertagnolli.
Anna Paradiso
Born in Bari, Italy, Anna Paradiso moved to Sweden in 2006 and is today one of the most prominent harpsichord players in her adoptive country, with concerts as soloist and continuo player at home, as well as in the rest of Europe, the USA, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Lebanon. Her previous ten recordings for BIS have received enthusiastic reviews. They include solo music by J. H. Roman, J. S. Bach and the contemporary composer Vito Palumbo, as well as baroque and modern chamber music with recorder player Dan Laurin and various ensembles. She studied harpsichord with Gordon Murray.
Parallel to her solo diplomas in piano and in harpsichord, she has had an academic career as Doctor of Philosophy in classical philology. Since 2009 she has dedicated herself completely to music. In recent years she has particularly distinguished herself in rediscovering unknown Swedish music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Through her study of original sources on original fingerings and on performance of thorough-bass, she has developed a personal style praised by the critics. In 2019, the Swedish Royal Academy of Music awarded her the prestigious Bernadotte Scholarship for a project on Neapolitan baroque music.
