Irena Preda comes from Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she began her musical path as a member of the youth choir Veter, performing at festivals throughout Europe.Her vocal studies began with Pija Brodnik at the Ljubljana Vic-Rudnik Music School. Only a few years later, she was offered a place at Trinity College of Music in London, where she studied with Sophie Grimmer, Robert Aldwinckle and Linda Hirst and graduated with distinction in July 2007. She continued her studies with Ameral Gunson and Mary Hilll. She continues to study with Pija Brodnik and Dunja Vejzovic.Irena was the recipient of scholarships by The City of Ljubljana, Rotary Club Ljubljana and was generously supported throughout her studies by the Gallus Foundation.She has taken masterclasses with Montserrat Caballé, Richard Miller, Paul Kiesgen, Philip Langridge, Donald Maxwell, Eugene Asti, Richard Jackson, Gordon Stewart, Malcolm Martineau, Graham Johnson, Meribeth Dayme, Ubaldo Fabri and most recently Nelly Miricioiu, Benjamin Zander and Dunja Vejzovic, as well as acting masterclasses with Jeremy Irons, Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce.During her studies she played Venus, the Sorceress and the Spirit in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Lucia in Julian Grant's A very private beach and made her stage debut in the title role of Carmen in a production of Bizet's opera at Greenwich Theatre, London.She was chosen as one of the representatives of Trinity College of Music at the Isle of Jersey, where she performed at the re-openning of Mont Orgueil Castle. It was for this occasion that she began to work with the tango quintet Del Plata and their collaboration has been growing in success ever since.Irena was also chosen to perform at the Schumann Festival in Blackheath Halls and The Peacock Room and was the only undergraduate student in the finals of the Lillian Ash French Song Competition, the English Song Competition and The Elisabeth Schumann Lieder Competition with her duo partner at the time, pianist Michalis Angelakis.Irena performs regularly and has thus given recitals in London and around England as well as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, China, Croatia, Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Her performance with the RTV Slovenia Simphony Orchestra and the Ave choir, conducted by Marko Hribernik was met with great acclaim. In June 2008 she performed in Brussels as part of a project called Sounds of Slovenia in a concert which marked the end of Slovenia's presidency over the European Union. She was invited by the British Embassy to perform before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Her Majesty's Gala during Her visit to Slovenia. Apart from classical singing and tango, she also sings jazz and gospel and has performed as part of jazz and gospel choirs at renowned jazz venues such as the famous London jazz clubs Ronnie Scott's, The 606 and The Spice of Life, as well as jazz festivals across England.Along with Tomi Meglic and Grega Skocir she recorded the music for In vino veritas??, a production of Senzorium Theatre, which opened on December 7, 2008 at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.She contributed vocals on the EP by the Slovenian band Siddharta called Vojna idej (Limited Edition) and appeared in the Renaissance part of the History of Architecture documentary by TV Slovenia.She performed in the 16. Managers' Concert at the Gallus Hall of Cankarjev dom with violinist Julian Rachlin and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evan Christ.Irena opened the 2009 Podelitev Presernovih nagrad award ceremony with the Slovene national anthem, as well as performing several pieces by the contemporary Slovene composer Aldo Kumar alongside accordeonist Marko Hatlak and harpist Mojca Zlobko Vajgl.In August of 2009 she took part in the prestigious London Master Classes and was chosen to work with conductor Benjamin Zander of Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.Irena was chosen as one of Slovenia's most promising young opera singers to perform in Opera obeta (Promising Opera), the Young Artists Concert by the Slovene National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana.In June she once again represented her country as she performed at the 2010 World EXPO in Shanghai on Slovenian Independence Day.Recently she was invited to perform at a benefit event at the newly built stadium in Ljubljana, where she performed before 22.000 people, as well as a concert with the Prague Philharmonic Children's Choir in Prague.For Irena's future performances, please see Performance Diary.
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