Viktoriia Vitrenko

Performers | Instrument: Singer

Viktoriia Vitrenko is a versatile Ukrainian soprano, conductor, and artistic director. Her debut album “Scenes” (2019, AUDITE) with chamber music by György Kurtág was honored with the Supersonic Pizzicato Award and received nominations for the German Record Critics' Award (PdSK-2019) and the International Contemporary Music Award 2020 (ICMA 2020). In 2024 her second album with music by Valentyn Sylvestrov “Forgotten Word I Wished to Say” was released by Sony Classical.

As a singer, Vitrenko has performed at the National Opera of Ukraine, the Opera Forward Festival in the Netherlands, the Opéra national de Lorraine as part of NOX, the Staatstheater Stuttgart/Junge Oper, Sofia Philharmonic, and IRCAM. She performed at renowned European festivals for contemporary music, including the ECLAT Festival, NOW! Festival, ORF Musikprotokoll, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, November Music, Transart Festival, R-E-M Festival, EM-Visia, Vox Electronica, and Contrasts International Contemporary Music Festival, as well as on the concert stages of the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam and the Konzerthaus Dortmund, among others.

Viktoriia Vitrenko is an alumna of the German Music Council’s project for contemporary music "InSzene Vokal" and was awarded the prestigious Michiko Hirayama Prize by the Scelsi Foundation in Italy (2023). She collaborated with acclaimed musicians such as Nurit Stark (violin), Nicholas Isherwood (voice), Luigi Gaggero (cymbalom), David Grimal (violin), and Niek de Groot (double bass).

Vitrenko studied singing with Angelika Luz, Georg Nigl, and Yasuko Kozaki at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. She had master classes with Juliet Fraser, Margreet Honig, Andreas Fischer, Christian Zehnder, and Sibylla Rubens.

Awards

2023/24 Artist-in-Residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart
2023 Michico Hirayama Prize by the Scelsi Foundation for Contemporary Vocal Music, Rome
2022/23 In Szene Vocal Promotion Program of the German Music Council | New Music Singing
2021 Artist-in-Residence at Cité internationale des arts, Paris
2019–2020 Supersonic Pizzicato Award and nominations for the German Record Critics' Award (PdSK-2019) and the International Contemporary Music Award (ICMA 2020) for the album “Scenes” (AUDITE)
2015 Karlsruhe International Competition for the Interpretation of New Music/Special Prize (for György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments), Germany

Selected works

Anna Arkushyna, ...En Ciel Enflammée for soprano and live electronics on the text “Contra Spem Spero” by Lesya Ukrainka (wp, 2023)

Performed by Viktoriia Vitrenko (soprano), Anna Arkushyna (music and live electronics), Claudia Jane Scroccaro (IRCAM educational supervisor), Jérémie Bourgogne (IRCAM sound diffusion)

14 September 2023, IRCAM, Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No9eB21rt_M

Svyatoslav Lunyov, Fierce January 23, 35 Songs on verses of Ukrainian poets for voice and piano

Performed by Viktoriia Vitrenko (soprano), Antonii Baryshevskyi (piano)

16 December 2023, Winteravonden aan de Amstel festival, Amsterdam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BO0eluWflA

György Kurtág, Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova, Op. 17

Performed by Ukho Ensemble, soprano Viktoriia Vitrenko, conductor Luigi Gaggero

October 2016, Plivka, Kyiv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B68mdAKMRA

Dieter Mack, Hannanissimo for soprano and percussion (*2005)

Performed by Viktoriia Vitrenko (soprano and choreography), Lucas Gerin (percussion), Roman Proskurin (supervision choreography)