BIOGRAPHY
Viktoria Nikolova is a Bulgarian singer, creator, and performer based in The Netherlands.
Viktoria has graduated from the National Music School “Liubomir Pipkov” in Sofia where she was born. Her training continued with a Bachelors's in classical singing and a Minor in Cultural Studies at New Bulgarian University.
Trained as a lyric soprano she decided to look for further development as an opera singer which brought her to The Netherlands. In 2017 she graduated with a Master in Classical Singing from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, with distinction.
She has sung since an early age on Bulgarian classical stages with the children’s choir “Bodra Smyana”, participating in opera performances of the National Opera and Ballet Sofia since age 11 and from 2010 as a choir member of the opera house. From 2012 – 2016 Viktoria was a lead singer in the Bulgarian neo-folk band Eriney.
In 2016 Viktoria took part in a project of Ton Koopman, a collaboration between The Royal Conservatory and The Julliard School – Hohe Messe (BWV 232) by J. S. Bach performed in New York and Boston, US, and around The Netherlands.
Viktoria performs in various singing styles, from classical and contemporary to folklore and electronic music. Her recent projects are including a collective that started at the beginning of 2020 together with Bahzad Sulaiman (performer, choreographer) and Christopher Collings (trumpet, electronics) with whom she is producing conceptual performance artworks. Their video performances Saarbrücken 14/03/2020 and Physical Quarantine were presented in galleries in the UK, Canada, and France.
As an ensemble singer and creator Viktoria’s latest project is with ensemble Voices Unlabelled that was formed during the NKKNXT19/20. In 2020 was the premier of “Staan en Opvallen”.
Since 2019 Viktoria is a lead singer of the Dutch Klezmer band Ot Azoj.
In 2019 Viktoria formed ensemble SamoDivas and created the show “Metamorphosis of a Female Character”, a dramatic and humorous music theater performance about Nina Zarechnaya, an underexposed character from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. It premiered on Grachtenfestival, Amsterdam 2019.
In 2018 Viktoria took part in the creation of the conceptual performance of Yotam Gaton and became part of “Die Badkhonim”, a group that derives from the melodrama genre that developed in the late 18th century, the performance is called “A Tale of Two Lights”.
In the same year, she took part in the installation performance devised by Johanna Kotlaris, “A Heartwarming Bone Cracking”,
In 2018/2019 Viktoria took part in the Master Praktikum program at Dutch Radio Choir for the season.
From 2020-2021 Viktoria is a vocal coach at the University of Limerick, Ireland.
Viktoria is currently a student in Arts, Media, Society program at Leiden University.
