He was born in Valjevo, a small town in Serbia where he took his first steps into the world of music. He finished primary music school, attending piano lessons, and later, during his high school he sang in the city choir, where he first had the opportunity to experience the excitement of a live performance as a choir soloist.
He later graduated from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in vocal performances, in the class of Professor Biserka Cvejic, but that too happened by accident.
Following graduation from the Valjevo Grammar School, Vladimir moved to Belgrade to study at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Marijana Mijanovic, today a world-renowned mezzo-soprano, asked him, back in 1991, a simple, but fate deciding question, "Why don't you study singing?"
Just three years after his first singing lesson, in 1994, as a member of the Opera studio at the National Theatre in Belgrade, he made his debut in the role of Montano in Verdi's Otello. That too was, as many things in his career, extremely unusual, because he learned and sang the role all in the same day, substituting for an indisposed colleague.
At the end of the same year, he was awarded the role of Papageno in the new production of "The Magic Flute" in the same opera house, and even in his first major role it was evident that he was talented both as a singer and a singing actor.
Two years later he had the honor and privilege of singing the role of John Proctor in the European premiere of "The Crucible" by US composer Robert Ward.
Since 1996 he has been employed at the Opera House of the National Theatre in Belgrade where, for more than ten years now, he holds a position of a Principal Baritone.
On that stage he debuted many leading roles, including Don Giovanni, Figaro (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), the Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Enrico Ashton (Lucia di Lammermoor), Rodrigo (Don Carlo), Germont (La Traviata), Belcore (L'Elisir d'amore), Papageno (The Magic Flute), Eugene Onegin, Valentin (Faust), Escamillo (Carmen), Sharpless (Madam Butterfly), Marcello (La Boheme), Dandini (La Cenerentola), etc.
Vladimir has performed alongside great and renowned artists - singers and conductors, such as Cvetelina Vasileva, Ana Durlovski, Marijana Mijanovic, Blagoj Nacoski, Fabio Armiliato, Daniela Dessi, Paolo Coni, Gregory Buchalter, Maurizio Arena, Ion Iancu, Alberto Veronesi, Marco Bohemi, Gianluca Martinenghi.
He had participated in two world premieres of two Serbian composer's works, Ivan Jevtic’s "Mandragola" performed at the Opera and Theater Madlenianum in Belgrade (the theater where he has also been continuously performing for more than two decades), and "Mileva" by Alexandra Vrebalov at Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, when Albert Einstein's role was written exclusively for him.
Some of Vladimir’s major guest appearances have included: Figaro in "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" in the National Theatre in Sofia, as well as in the Opera of Skopje, in the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad and the National Theatre in Kaunas; Germont in "La Traviata" in the St. Petersburg Opera; Onegin at the festival in Rovigo and Ravenna, Italy; Don Giovanni in Portugal; Paolo in "Simon Boccanegra" in Skopje; Gaudenzio in "Il Signor Bruschino" in Zadar, Croatia.
He performed at the Irkutsk Music festival in Russia for two years in a row in 2017 and 2018, singing the role of Belcore and holding a master class in vocal technique and interpretation.
In 2019, in addition to singing the lead role in Mozart's “Don Giovanni" Vladimir held a series of concerts and a masterclass at the New England Conservatory in Boston, USA, and he sang at the concert in the United Nations Headquarters ECOSOC Hall in New York.
in december 2019 he sang the role of Rodrigo in Verdi's "Don Carlo" in Sarajevo National Theatre, with renowned Croatian conductor Ivo Lipanovic.
When he crossed the genre borders, the critics and the audience praised highly his performance of the role of Inspector Javert in the musical “Les Miserables” in Opera & Theater Madlenianum, comparing him to a serious drama actor.
In addition to his opera career, Vladimir performs songs and song cycles by Schubert, Schumann, Loewe, Strauss, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, as well as oratorios and cantatas by Bach, Faure, Brahms and Orff.
With two prominent serbian choirs, Collegium Musicum and Obilic, he performed for many years as a soloist in the concert halls of Hong Kong, Taipei, Mexico City, Venice, Athens, to name a few.
He won the first place at the International Jeunesses Musicales Competition in Belgrade and the third place at the George Enescu International Festival in Bucharest, where the members of the Jury among others were Mr. Ioan Hollander and Ms. Grace Bumbry.
He received the Davidoff Award for the role of Dandini in Rossini's "La Cenerentola" and the Commendation of the National Theatre in Belgrade for the same production.
