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Dávid Szigetvári was born in Kecel in 1984 and attended Budapest's Leó Weiner High School of Music, where he studied music composition, harpsichord and, under the guidance of Éva Lax, solo voice. In 2004, he was admitted to the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, graduating in 2009 with a degree in voice and voice pedagogy after studying under Katalin Halmai, after also being presented with the Artisjus Award in 2006 for his performances of contemporary works of music. He has taken part in master classes led by renowned musicians Mitsuko Shirai, Nicholas Clapton, Peter Schreier, Helmuth Rilling, Ton Koopman, Nancy Argenta and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt. Conductor György Vashegyi has invited him to join the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra as a soloist in numerous concerts, opera and oratorio performances and recordings, and in 2008 Szigetvári made a successful debut as the Evangelist in Bach's Saint Matthew Passion in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy, taking on the equivalent role in the Saint John Passion the following year. Since then, he has frequently appeared as a soloist in the two works, both in Hungary and abroad. In 2010, he won a special prize at the First International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera Pietro Antonio Cesti. He has recorded Domenico Mazzocchi's opera La catena d'Adone together with the Belgian ensemble Scherzi Musicali, as well as Antonio Caldara's oratorio Santo Stefano Primo Re dell'Ungheria with the Savaria Baroque Orchestra under the baton of Pál Németh. In 2012, as part of Passau's Monteverdi cycle, he made an acclaimed debut as Telemaco in the opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse, following up with similar success the next year in the title role of L'Orfeo (with Kobie van Rensburg directing). He also took the role of Orfeo to New Delhi, where he gave the work its Indian premiere together with the French ensemble Akadêmia. The production also later made it to Paris, with a performance at the Cité de la Musique. The year 2012 saw Szigetvári both receiving the Junior Prima Award and taking first place in the voice category at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. In the summer of 2013 he jumped in to sing in Cavalli's Elena at the Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival, and then went on to play the role of Teseo in the productions tour of Lille, Lisbon and Sablé-sur-Sarthe. He made his Hungarian State Opera debut in April 2014, singing the role of the Evangelist in Mendelssohn's reworking of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion.
Dávid Szigetvári