Noriaki Yamamura

Japanese baritone Noriaki Yamamura, born 1988 in Chiba, lives between Vorarlberg and Apulia — singing his story across Italian, German and Japanese.

After completing his Bachelor of Music at Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, Noriaki Yamamura moved to Austria in 2018 to study at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory in Feldkirch, graduating with the Diploma in Voice from the class of Prof. Clemens Morgenthaler. In March 2026 he completed his Master’s degree in Opera Singing at the Conservatorio "Niccolò Piccinni" in Bari, in the class of Prof.ssa Maria Grazia Pani, with whom he continues to study. In 2025 he transitioned from tenor to baritone repertoire and has since been studying with Chris Merritt as well.

On the opera stage he has performed Pedrillo (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) at Piccola Opera Zürich, Junker Spärlich (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) at the Werdenberger Schloss Festspiele, and the First Prisoner in Beethoven’s Fidelio in Wangen im Allgäu and Weingarten. At the Bregenz Festival 2022 he appeared as a chorus soloist in Brigitte Fassbaender’s production of L’italiana in Algeri.

As a concert soloist he has sung the Evangelist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Offenburg, as well as sacred works by Mozart, Schubert, Biber and Charpentier — many of them at Mehrerau Abbey in Bregenz. Since 2018 he has been a member of the Bregenz Festival Choir, performing under Kirill Petrenko in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and in the Festival’s Floating Stage productions of Verdi’s Rigoletto.

His artistic development has been shaped by masterclasses with Francisco Araiza, Christoph Prégardien, Rainer Trost, Kurt Widmer, Christoph Strehl, Krisztina Laki and Sonia Prina. Yamamura sings in five languages — Italian, German, English, French and Japanese.