Winner of the BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year award, Nicky Spence  is an internationally celebrated Scottish tenor, broadcaster and one of classical music’s most compelling advocates. Renowned for the generosity of his musicianship, infectious humour and fearless dramatic commitment, Nicky has become one of the defining singing actors of his generation. He was appointed an OBE in the King’s inaugural Birthday Honours for services to music and has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer Award.

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This season, he headlines the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms alongside Yuja Wang—one of the highest-profile engagements in the classical music calendar and a landmark moment in a remarkable career.

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A tireless force for good across the musical world, Nicky was recently made a Fellow of his alma mater, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The School has also launched the Nicky Spence Scholarship, created to help talented singers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds access the highest levels of musical training - a cause that reflects Nicky’s own journey.

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Raised and educated in Dumfries and Galloway, Nicky won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama as a teenager. While still a student, he secured a recording contract with Decca Records before continuing his studies at the National Opera Studio and subsequently joining English National Opera as one of its inaugural Harewood Artists.

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Today, Nicky is recognised as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of Janáček, receiving the Janáček Memorial Medal in Brno in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the composer’s legacy. Equally at home in Britten, Wagner and contemporary repertoire, he continues to fulfil his remarkable potential as a heldentenor, with acclaimed role debuts as Parsifal with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder and WNO's award-winning production of Peter Grimes.

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A prolific recording artist and much-loved recitalist at Wigmore Hall, Nicky appears regularly on the world’s great opera stages, including the Opéra national de Paris, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. His recordings have earned widespread critical acclaim. He received both the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award and Gramophone’s Solo Vocal Award for Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared with Julius Drake before repeating that remarkable double triumph for his recording of the title role in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Gabrieli Consort, a work he has since performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle.

Recent operatic triumphs include the title roles in Peter Grimes (Welsh National Opera), The Excursions of Mr Brouček (Janáček Festival, Brno) and Oberon at the BBC Proms, alongside acclaimed appearances as Sergey in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the BBC Proms, Boris in Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Laca in Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House, Albert Gregor in Věc Makropulos at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Siegmund in Die Walküre, Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer alongside Sir Bryn Terfel at Grange Park Opera, Loge in Romeo Castellucci’s new Ring Cycle for La Monnaie, and Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel in Paris. Other recent highlights include the Hauptmann in Wozzeck with Sir Simon Rattle in Munich, Finn and Bayan in Ruslan and Lyudmila at Hamburg State Opera, a world-premiere work for Opera Philadelphia, a return to the Opéra national de Paris in Satyagraha, Laura Karpman’s Balls conducted by Marin Alsop, and concert performances of Jenůfa, Janáček’s The Eternal Gospel and Die Walküre with Sir Simon Rattle, Jakub Hrůša, David Afkham and leading orchestras across Europe. He also completed a celebrated artist residency at Wigmore Hall.

Highlights of the current season include his La Scala debut in Britten's War Requiem under Simone Young, a residency at the Janáček Festival in Brno, performing the title role in The Excursions of Mr Brouček, Ctirad in Šárka and Laca in Jenůfa with Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony. Elsewhere, he returns as Loge in Das Rheingold in a new Ring cycle at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, sings in Katya Kabanova at the Royal Opera House, revisits Thomas Adès’ extraordinary The Exterminating Angel, and makes his Deutsche Oper Berlin debut in Britten’s War Requiem.

Off stage, Nicky uses his space to bring more people to classical music than ever before. Passionate about breaking down barriers to the art form, he has presented the acclaimed Sky Arts series 'Anyone Can Sing' and 'Sing When You’re Winning', appears regularly across television and radio, and contributes to the national press with the same wit, honesty and infectious enthusiasm that have made him one of classical music’s most engaging communicators.

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He is a former President of the Independent Society of Musicians, an Ambassador for Help Musicians, a member of the National Opera Studio’s Sounding Board and Patron of Grasmere Song. He gives masterclasses around the world and is a Visiting Professor at both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, where he continues to inspire the next generation of singers.

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Life beyond the opera house finds Nicky as proud husband to pianist and regular collaborator Dylan Perez, a devoted dad to their son Baird, and happily outnumbered by an ever-growing menagerie of animals at home in Renfrewshire.