BIOGRAPHY
Baroque violist and soprano Ana Torbica comes from a versatile family of musicians and teachers. She started her musical education by playing violin and singing in the Children's Choir of the Radio-Television of Serbia for ten years. After finishing her secondary music education in violin and voice at the Vojislav Vuckovic Music School in Belgrade, she continued her undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Arts in Niš, followed by postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied baroque viola with Jane Rogers and Nicolette Moonen, and singing with Michael Chance. During her studies, she was the recipient of the Christopher Hogwood Scholarship, the Johnathan Julyan Award in Historical Performance, the Bikerdike Allen Prize, the Royal Academy of Music Bursary, and the Andreas and Margaret Makris Matching Scholarship from the USA. In 2020 she was awarded the Master of Arts degree in Historical Performance, as well as the LRAM Teaching Diploma. Through the generous grant from the Macfarlane Walker Trust she was also able to acquire a new baroque viola by the famous luthier Jan Pawlikowski.
An active performer, Ana appeared with ensembles such as New Trinity Baroque (dir. Predrag Gosta), Savaria Baroque Orchestra (dir. Pál Németh), Eboracum Baroque (dir. Christ Parsons), Musica Antiqua Neoplantensis and the Baroque Orchestra of the New Belgrade Opera. She has performed at the London Festival of Baroque Music, the Belgrade Early Music Festival, the Baroque Days in Novi Sad, the Korkyra Baroque and Varazdin Baroque Evenings festivals in Croatia, the Baroque Arts Festival in Sofia (dir. Zefira Valova), and at several international competitions where she won prizes in chamber music and singing. She also performs on a modern viola, and has appeared with the Makris Symphony Orchestra and the Gwinnett Ballet Theatre Orchestra (USA), as well as with the Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra in Greece (at the 2021 Karditsa Music Festival). She is a freelance artist in her home country since 2018 and is member of the Association of Musical Artists in Serbia. She is featured on a CD recording of Buxtehude's "Membra Jesu Nostri" with New Trinity Baroque.
Ana's interest in historical performance came through her work with the Belgrade and Austria Baroque Academies, as well as the Dartington International Summer School in England. She gained experience through performing and recording baroque operas and chamber repertoire, and through participating in the masterclasses with eminent artists such as Florian Deuter, Bojan Cicic, Adrian Butterfield, Evelyn Tubb, Robert Howarth, Clive Brown and Roberta Mameli. In various projects of the Royal Academy of Music she collaborated with artists such as Trevor Pinnock, Philippe Herreweghe, Rachel Podger, Lawrence Cummings, John Butt, Pavlo Beznosiuk and Margaret Faultless. She also performed with the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra in its Bach Cantatas Series, supported by the Kohn Foundation and HM the Queen, as well as in baroque operas. As a member of the ensemble the Academy Baroque Soloists, she has performed throughout the UK. The last couple of years she has been a regular guest of the British Embassy in Serbia, where she performed during the birthday celebration of HM the Queen.
As a soprano, Ana primarily performs Baroque, Renaissance and the church repertoire. In 2020 she took the role of Maddalena in oratorio ”Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo” with the New Belgrade Opera. She was the soloist in the Telemann Viola Concerto in the USA and Serbia. In May of 2021 she premiered a newly discovered Viola Concerto by J.G. Graun with New Trinity Baroque at the 16th Belgrade Early Music Festival. In September of 2021 she was featured at the concert of music and lute songs from the time of Vermier. Her activities in 2020, despite the pandemic, brought her the Best Young Artist Award from the Association of Music Artists in Serbia. As a result, she was invited to present a solo recital at the most prestigious concert hall - the Kolarac Concert Hall in Belgrade.
Ana is also passionate about teaching. She was the baroque strings coach at the inaugural edition of the Novi Sad Baroque Academy, where she presented a mixture of teaching methods incorporated with historically informed performance practice. In October of 2021 she joined the Herne Hill Music Studio in London as one of their tutors. She enjoys teaching students of all levels and ages, and is always willing to exchange knowledge, seeking new exciting and productive ways of learning. She has explored educational psychology, as well as Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, visualization and different teaching schools. Having studied 2nd-study piano at her music college as a compulsory requirement, she is able to guide children to take ABRSM graded piano music exams too. The students’ happiness, acquisition of new knowledge and musical improvement are the most important things to her. Diana Cummings, the LRAM programme supervisor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, said: “Ana gave a detailed and very well-presented analysis of the baroque viola, the comparison with modern viola and how it could be taught. You have a very analytical mind and think through all the elements of teaching effectively and constructively. You are a most promising teacher, and you are exploring your potential with great enthusiasm. Well done.”
A daughter of a mother who is a violinist and concertmaster, and a father trombonist, Ana is the descendant of Nedialka Simeonova, the first Bulgarian violin-virtuoso, who was praised by American critics of the 1920’s as “one of the world’s best violinists”.
