Iurii Samoilov has just left the Opera Studio Nederlands in Amsterdam to join the studio here at Oper Frankfurt in the 2012/13 season. He will be taking part in a young singers’ project at the Salzburg Festival in the summer of 2013. This Ukrainian baritone graduated from the National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2011 with distinction and has been successful at numerous singing competitions. After winning several prizes in his homeland he was a finalist at the renowned „Neue Stimmen/New Voices“ international singing competition, which led to his being invited to join the „Neue Stimmen“ Masterclasses in November 2010. This was soon followed by his first performances in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and – in a José Carreras Christmas Gala – the Royal Albert Hall in London. He returned to the Concergebouw in 2011 for Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Sweelinck Orchestra, which then went on tour in the Ukraine. That year he also took part in a Jubilee production of Don Giovanni in the Muziektheater in Amsterdam. Highlights in 2012 were a Rimsky Korsakov production with Dmitri Tcherniakov at De Nederlandse Opera and the interpretation of the male lead role in Pelléas et Mélisande as part of the Operadagen Festival in Rotterdam. He also covered Biterolf (Tannhäuser) at the Tirol Festival in Erl and Nardo (La finta giardiniera) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.