Guenko Guechev is an internationally acclaimed bass-baritone. He has taken his natural aptitude for music and his gift of language-fluency and applied them with fervor to the specialty of 19th and early 20th century operatic interpretive vocal styles.
Professor Guechev received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in performance from the Pancho Vladigerov State Conservatory of Music in Sofia. After graduation, he continued his vocal study with the renowned Professor Sergei Afanasiev at the “Tchaikovsky Conservatory” in Moscow, Russia. In 1993, he was chosen from hundreds of young singers to study with the legendary operatic bass Boris Christoff in Rome, Italy.
Professor Guechev instantaneously became known and sought after. He performed leading roles in productions of Carmen, Nabucco, Boris Godunov, Don Giovanni, Barbiere di Seviglia, Aleko, Macbeth, and I Puritani with every major Bulgarian opera company including the Sofia National Opera, the Varna Opera, the Plovdiv Opera, and the Stara Zagora National Opera. Since then, Mr. Guechev’s career has grown internationally. He has sung leading bass roles in productions of Il Trovatore, La Boheme, Tosca, La Traviata, and Un Ballo in Maschera in the countries of Austria (at the Salzburg Festspielhaus), Germany (Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin), Switzerland, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland.
In 1999, Guenko Guechev’s made his US opera debut in Verdi’s Rigoletto with the Pittsburgh Opera. He has also appeared in Lortzing’s Tzar und Zimmerman, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Britten’s Albert Herring with Opera Delaware, Opera Syracuse, and Natchez Opera Festival.
Recently, Mr. Guechev has performed solo recital in memory of the great basso Boris Christoff in Washington, D.C. and the role of Rabbi Azriel in the multi-media opera Dybbuk by the Israeli-American composer Ofer Ben-Amots at the Pittsburgh Jewish Festival. He has released on CD with the Gega New Classical label the “Songs and Dances of Death” by Mousorgsky and “Michelangelo Suite op. 145” by Schostakovich and the CD “Nostalgia” with songs by Peter Tschaikovsky and Gorgiy Sviridov. He was featured on the CD “Russian Jewish Classic” with songs by the composer Leo Zeitlin, released by Toccata Classics label in 2015.
In his voice studio, Professor Guechev works with students on fundamental vocal technique and wide area of repertoire. His true passion and expertise is in developing and guidance of substantial operatic voices capable of singing Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner.
His voice and opera students Katya Shcherbachenko, Andrey Nemzer, and Alianna Whitaker won prices in many prestigious competitions like Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions, Placido Domingo’s Operalia, Gerda Lissner Foundation competition, and Cardiff’s singer of the world-international voice competition.
He is also the chairman of the board of directors of the Euro Atlantic Art Foundation and founder and faculty of the Bologna International Opera Academy for Young Artists in Bologna, Italy.
In the past several years, Professor Guechev taught voice and opera as a visiting professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, Minzu National University in Beijing, the Qingdao University, and Jinan University in the P.R. of China.
