Burns was invited to Bulgaria by acad. Plamen Kartaloff after the former won the International contest “Young opera ambassadors” in Montreal, Canada, in 2023.
On the 6th of February, Nicholas will hold a recital consisting of Baroque arias by Johan Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, Alessandro Scarlatti and Georg Friedrich Handel under the accompaniment of a Sofia Opera chamber orchestra.
On the 9th of February, he will perform in the scenic cantata “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff together with Stanislava Momekova, Ventseslav Anastasov and the Sofia Opera orchestra, choir and corps de ballet, with conductor Igor Bogdanov.
Nicholas Burns has already performed in the operas “Julius Caesar”, “Rodelinda”, “Ariodante” and “Hercules” by Handel. He has held many concerts in Canada, Mexico and the United States and has won several awards from international contests.
He shares he likes listening to other countertenors’ performances. “Yes, I definitely listen to a lot of recordings and I love listening to them. As far as countertenors go, I feel like there are so many different sounds, so many different schools. And another thing: in Baroque music, there are very little instructions in the score itself on how fast one has to perform and what articulation should one use. One of the funniest things to me, and I mainly perform Baroque pieces, is that I get to decide how the aria is going to go, as its performer and interpreter.”
Nicholas shares he loves listening to Gustav Maler and Antonio Vivaldi and that his favorite composer is Bach. He prefers singing in English and dreams of performing as Oberon, the fairy King in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Benjamin Britton.
Born in Vancouver, Nicholas Burns is described as a singer with a “thrilling voice” which “soothes the ear with its velvety timbre” and his performances are defined as “revelations”. Nicholas is also an experienced bagpipe player. He won the bagpipe orchestra world championship in 2012.