The young bass, born in Kuwait, grew up in Munich and made his first stage experience at the Bavarian Theatre Academy and at the Bavarian State Opera’s operatic studio, where he was an ensemble member from 2012 to 2016. Here he was able to showcase his extraordinary dramatic talents in many different roles such as Don Fernando (Fidelio), Masetto (Don Giovanni), The Speaker (The Magic Flute), Sylvano (La Calisto), Zuniga (Carmen), Truffaldino (Ariadne auf Naxos), Publio (La clemenza di Tito), Caronte (L’Orfeo), Nachtwächter (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Albert (La Juive), and Osman (Les Indes galantes), to name but a few.

But it is not just in Munich where Tareq Nazmi’s name is well known. In summer 2015, René Jacobs conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni on an acclaimed tour with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (to places such as Barcelona, Shanghai, Beijing and Paris), and invited Tareq Nazmi to sing the parts of Il Commendatore and of Masetto, following the practice of the opera’s premiere. In 2016 Don Giovanni again plays a central role in Tareq Nazmi’s repertoire; he made his debut in spring at Cologne’s Opera House as Leporello under François-Xavier Roth and at the end of the year will appear in a new production at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Two further role and venue debuts will take Tareq Nazmi to the Komische Oper in Berlin, where he will perform the role of Basilio in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and to St Gallen and a new production of Nabucco where he will give his role debut as Zaccaria, venturing into Verdi repertoire for the first time. At the Grafenegg Festival and at the Philharmonie Cologne, Tareq Nazmi will appear in the title role in the rarely-performed Thamos, King of Egypt, for which Mozart composed the incidental score.

When it comes to concerts, Tareq Nazmi has a particularly broad repertoire, ranging from Bach to Beethoven, from Haydn to Brahms and from Mozart to Dvořák. Important career highlights include his debut with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach, under whom he also performed in concerts with the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the Philharmonie Cologne, Brahms’ Requiem in San Sebastian under Jukka-Pekka Sarastre, also with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, and Mozart’s Requiem under Manfred Honeck with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin. Tareq Nazmi has a close working relationship with Enoch zu Guttenberg, under whom he was often to be seen at the Herrenchiemsee Festival and at Munich’s Prinzregenten Theater as Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The corresponding DVD was released by Farao in June 2016. Singing the rarely performed Mozart concert arias for bass, Tareq Nazmi made an acclaimed debut under Constantinos Carydis at the 2016 Salzburg Festival.

2016 also sees Tareq Nazmi on tour through Canada and the USA performing Mozart’s Requiem with the Klangverwaltung Orchestra and Enoch zu Guttenberg, making his debut with the Orchestre de Paris in Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust under Daniel Harding, and performing in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Lisbon’s Orquestra Gulbenkian under Alain Altinoglu.

Recitals are becoming ever more frequent in Tareq Nazmi’s repertoire, and he has recently performed Schubert and Schumann songs together with Gerold Huber in Munich, Deggendorf and the famous Schubertiade in Hohenems. For the future Tareq Nazmi already has recitals planned in Ingolstadt and at London’s Wigmore Hall.