Rinalds Kandalincevs

Born in a small town called Ventspils on the west coast of Latvia. After first finishing studies at the Latvian Academy of Music, he obtained a master's degree in performing arts at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2010. 

His stage career started back in 2004, with a small part in latvian composer Janis Kalnin's opera Hamlet. And soon after that many diverse musical projects followed, especially in the field of early music in cooperation with the baroque orchestra Collegium Musicum Riga. Roles of Orpheus were interpreted both in Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and in Giulio Caccini's L'Euridice, Aeneas in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, vocal parts in Monteverdi's Vespro, Jochann Sebastian Bach's Weichnachtsoratorium and Coffee cantata and many, many others.

Parallelly with that, his long term cooperation with the annual Sigulda Opera Festival (Latvia) also started in 2006, with the part of notary in Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula. 

But a real turning point in his career came after returning to Latvia from Norway. In 2018 he made his debut and became a soloist at the Latvian National Opera, with the role of Marcello in Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme. Since then he has gradually become one of the leading soloists of the house, with roles like Germont and Rodrigo in Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata and Don Carlo, Valentin in Charles Gounod's Faust, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, Count Danilo in Franz Lehar's Die lustige Witwe, also the baritone part in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana among others. 

The roles of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth and Nabucco, along with Tonio in Ruggiero Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, are the latest additions to his operatic repertoire. 

Over the years he has honed his vocal abilities with several voice teachers and coaches. James McCray, Maris Skuja and Dale Fundling among a few others.

Besides being a singer, he also works as a voice teacher himself.