IWONA SOBOTKA, soprano

Iwona Sobotka achieved instant international acclaim as the Grand Prix winner of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium. Other awards include first prizes at the Warsaw Polish Art Song Competition, the Paderewski Competition in Bydgoszcz and the East & West Artists International Auditions in New York,  where she was awarded her debut concert in Carnegie Hall.

Mrs. Sobotka has performed all over Europe, in the Americas and Japan, in such prestigious venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Albert Hall in London, Palais de Beaux Arts in Brusseles and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Iwona has cooperated with many orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, NDR Sinfonieorchester, Bayerischer Rundfunkorchester, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Sinfonia Varsovia,  having worked with many of today's pre-eminent conductors including Sir Colin Davies, Sir Simon Rattle, Marco Armiliato, Sylwian Camberling, Teodor Currentzis and Massimo Zanetti.

Equally at home on the concert, as well the opera stage. Iwona Sobotka made her debut at the National Opera in Paris, and has created the roles of Violetta (La Traviata), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Julia (Romeo and Juliette) or Micaëla (Carmen). In 2010 she made her debut in the Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival in the title role in Halka by Stanis?aw Moniuszko, and continued that association in the summer of 2011, in the role of Liù in Turandot to great critical acclaim: ?Iwona Sobotka, impressed in the role of the slave Liù with her warm, flexible voice that moved in the third act as dying the audience to tears. It was clear: What is celebrated here is one of the rare pleasures.? (Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag). Recent notable roles include  Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) under Teodor Currentzis in the Tchaikowsky Opera in Perm (Russia) and as Pamina (The Magic Flute) on the stage of Podlaska Opera in Bialystok (Poland).

Iwona Sobotka is widely acknowledged for her interpretations of Polish vocal repertoire ? particularly the works of Karol Szymanowski. In 2004, she contributed to a complete collection of his songs released by the Dutch label Channel Classics, and was distinguished by the National Academy of Recording Arts of Poland  with the ?Fryderyk? Award for the most outstanding recording of polish music. On a subsequent release for EMI Classics in 2006, she performed Songs of a Fairytale Princess with Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which received five stars from the prestigious BBC Music Magazine. In 2010 she participated in a ?Szymanowski Focus' program, curated by Piotr Anderszewski to promote composer's music with concerts in Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall.

In the current season Mrs. Sobotka joins the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in a peformance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem under Simon Halsey. Other concerts includes Mahler's 9th Symphony with the National Polish Radio Orchestra under Jacek Kaspszyk and Mahler's 4th Symphony with Sinfonia Varsovia under Gabriel Chmura. She returns to opera stage in the role of Violetta (La Traviata) with both the Podlaska Opera in Bialystok and the Grand Theatre in Poznan and has recitals in Spain, Poland, and China. She is also a permanent guest of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, where she received the 2007 Audience Award.

Iwona Sobotka graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and continued her studies with renowned artist and pedagogue Tom Krause at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid.