Nikolay Borchev was born in Pinsk, in White Russia, and began his vocal training at the age of 16 at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he was a pupil of Maria Aria and Pavel Listsian. In 1998 he won first prize in the Moscow Bella Voce Competition. From October 2000 he studied at the Berlin Hans Eisler Musikhochschule with Heinz Reeh and participated in masterclasses with Julia Varady and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, among others.

He has taken part in many concerts in Russia, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and Luxemburg with his Moscow vocal ensemble Ave Maria and appeared in opera productions, including Eugene Onegin, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, and Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’Italiana in Algeri. In September 2003 he joined the Youth Ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich of which he has been a member since 2004. In Munich he has undertaken various rôles, including Morales in Carmen, Papageno, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, and has appeared in new productions of Lulu as The Journalist, of Roméo et Juliette as Gregorio and as Donald in Billy Budd.