Young baritone and composer Vojtěch Šembera studied singing at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno with Jaromír Novotný and Irena Troupová, composition with Ivo Medek and Martin Smolka. He also studied briefly at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he attended composition classes with Cornelis de Bondt, Calliope Tsoupaki and Jan van de Putte, and further improved his singing skills under Noa Frenkel. He has participated in selected interpretation courses abroad (eg VENI Academy, vocal masterclass EMA) and singing masterclasses with Antonio Carangel and Kateřina Kněžíková. In his singing practice, he focuses mainly on the interpretation of contemporary music and the song repertoire. His composing activities are mostly aimed at vocal work and graphic scores.
In 2013 and 2014, he was awarded an honourable mention at the GENERATION International Composition Competition, and in 2015 he was awarded 2nd place at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in the Opera Hope category. In 2017, he received 2nd place at the Dušek Singing Competition, The President of the EMA prize and 3rd place at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in the Junior and Song categories.
During his studies at JAMU, he performed in several productions of the JAMU Chamber Opera (M. Hába: The Little Prince – The King, The Snake; W. A. Mozart: The Magic Flute – Papageno;C. Orff: Die Kluge – The Mule Man). He made his professional opera debut at the Silesian Theatre in Opava (A. Dvořák: Rusalka – Hunter) and also performed at the Jan Kajetán Tyl Theatre in Pilsen (A. Thomas: Hamlet – Horatio). In his concert activities he has performed with the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra (C. Orff: Carmina Burana; J. S. Bach: John’s Passions; A. Dvořák: Biblical Songs), with the National Theatre Orchestra (D. Matej: KyAriAe), North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice (W. A. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro – Count Almaviva) and others. In collaboration with Ensemble 18+, he portrayed one of the main roles in the renewed premiere of Joseph Barta’s singspiel Dobrá rada dobrá. He performed his own composition for baritone and orchestra Filoktétés with the Brno Philharmonic and the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Mariánské Lázně. Together with Leoš Svárovský and the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, he made a recording of Antonín Dvořák’s Biblical Songs. In the field of contemporary music, he has performed with the ensembles VENI ensemble, Mirror ensemble, at the festival Days of New Opera Ostrava (A. Hába: Thy Kingdom Come –Christ, Lay Preacher; Songbooks – Solo Voice), or with Orchestr BERG (L. Lim: Tongue of the Invisible). During his one-year study stay in the Netherlands, he collaborated with the Orkest de Ereprijs on the Young Composers Meeting project and performed at the Dag in de Branding festival (M. Artaç: Zizos). He regularly collaborates with the Meeting of New Music Plus festival. With his own project Voice Drowned in the Ocean of Silence, which has so far been attended by composers from more than 10 countries, he contributes to expanding the repertoire for solo voice.
