Tamara Radjenovic Biography

Tamara Radjenovic is a young British-Montenegrin soprano based in the United Kingdom. Named by Forbes Europe as one of its ‘30 under 30 in Art and Culture’ for 2023, she has also proudly served as an ambassador for the Council of Europe’s campaign ‘Block the hatred, share the love’.

 

Tamara’s declared mission is to open new perspectives on classical music to a wider audience. Her belief is that music has no boundaries and that active collaboration between art forms is of the essence in our complex and diverse world. Her performances have taken her to Spain, Italy, England, Germany, Austria, Romania, Mauritius, the US (including two concerts at Carnegie Hall) and a number of other countries around the world.

 

After graduating from London’s Royal College of Music, long ranked as the world’s top music conservatory, Tamara won a scholarship to remain at the college for her Master’s studies. When she was just 19 her talent was further endorsed by the great Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé, who over the last four years of her life acted as Tamara’s mentor. This led to Tamara’s participation in two Caballé galas at the Auditorio de Zaragoza and in a Christmas concert staged by the Fundació Montserrat Caballé in aid of young artists.

 

Tamara recently had a spectacular solo debut concert at the prestigious Cadogan hall in London, further establishing herself as a rising star in the classical/cross-classical music world.

New York’s Carnegie Hall stands as a landmark in Tamara’s career. She made her debut there in 2018 in recital with tenor Mario Chang (a former winner of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition), soprano Majo Morales and pianist Caroline Dowdle of London’s Royal Opera House and the Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique. Tamara returned to the hall in 2019 with pianist Djordje Nešić of the Manhattan School of Music. A third engagement, planned for 2020, was cancelled as a consequence of the pandemic.

 

Tamara’s London appearances have included her debut at St James’s Piccadilly with Carlos Conde and Wai-Yin Lee, and concerts at Pushkin House as part of the inaugural Medtner Festival and in tribute to the Romanov family. In operatic productions at the Royal College of Music’s Britten Theatre she sang Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romilda in Handel’s Serse and Anne in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Her appearances at the Royal College’s Amaryllis Fleming Hall include a celebration of Chinese New Year, and in London she has also sung at the St Mary Abbot’s and St Olave’s and at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Among her appearances elsewhere in the UK was a recital with pianist Oliver Poole in the World Series at the Opus Theatre in Hastings.

 

Tamara was born in Belgrade and has given five concerts at the city’s prestigious Kolarac Hall, collaborating with baritone David Bižić, pianist Djordje Nešić, trumpeter Nikola Mijajlović, the Makris Symphony Orchestra and conductor Predrag Gosta. After her sold-out concert in December 2022, Tamara established an annual New Year’s concert at the Kolarac Hall, while in December 2023 she performed there with violinist Robert Lakatos and the Belgrade Classic Symphony Orchestra and Choir conducted by Srboljub Dinić. Other performances in Serbia include her performance in Novi Sad at the City Hall of Novi Sad.

 

Summer 2019 brought Tamara’s debuts at two festivals in Montenegro: Kotor Art and Theatre City Budva, where a reviewer welcomed ‘’a memorable musical performance from a talented young star’’. She also made her debut at the Montenegrin National Theatre in Podgorica, and in 2018 gave a New Year’s concert in Kotor.

 

In 2019 in Barcelona, at the Teatre de Sarrià, she performed with Spanish tenor Marc Sala, and in 2019, under the auspices of the European Music Institute, she performed at Schloss Laudon in Vienna. Her first performances as Mimì in La bohème took place in 2017 at the Mediterranean Opera Studio Festival in Sicily under the baton of Leonardo Catalanotto, and in 2015 she participated in the Oper Oder Spree Festival in Beeskow, Germany, where she sang with the Prussian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Frank Zacher.

 

Tamara’s music videos are presented on the Stingray CMusic channel, with special highlights being Carlos Gardel’s ‘Por una cabeza’, Nino Rota’s ‘Parla più piano’ and  Guastavino’s  ’’La rosa y el sauce’.

Since October 2023, Tamara’s video performances of the Montenegrin national anthem and the Anthem of Europe have been broadcast every morning and evening on the country’s national TV network.

 

 

Humanitarian causes are important to Tamara and she has given numerous performances at charity events, such as the Sava Ball at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna (January 2024), the St Sava Ball in London, raising money for Montenegrin children’s hospitals, and a fundraiser at Claridge’s in London for the Serbian NGO Lifeline, whose patron is HRH Crown Princess Katherine of Serbia.

 

Having set her sights on a career in opera at an early age, Tamara went on to win seven first prizes at national and international competitions in Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia and a special prize at Bruna Špiler International Festival in Montenegro. At the age of 17 she performed with members of the Wiener Philharmoniker in Salzburg as part of a youth opera project run by the American Austrian Foundation and the Wiener Philhamoniker. In the course of her studies she has participated in the masterclasses of such artists as Montserrat Caballé, Sylvia Schwartz, Edita Garčević Koželj, Dmitry Alexeev, Patricia MacMahon, Lynn Eustis and Snežana Stamenković.