Ema Nikolovska

Born in North Macedonia, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska grew up in Toronto, where she studied violin at the Glenn Gould School, before studying voice with Helga Tucker. She received her master’s degree in voice at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where she also completed the opera course. Nikolovska was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019–2022 and a prize winner of the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize (Kathleen Ferrier Awards), the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions, and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust award.

This season, she makes her debut with the Canadian Opera Company in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and sings the Woman in Sir George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre. Concert highlights include Stravinsky’s Les Noces with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Kent Nagano, Vivier’s Wo du Bist du Licht with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France and Barbara Hannigan, and Scriabin’s First Symphony with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi.

A celebrated recitalist, Nikolovska embarks this season on a recital tour of North America with performances on the stages of the continent’s most eminent performing arts institutions with pianists Charles Richard-Hamelin and Howard Watkins. Elsewhere, her dynamic international recital schedule brings her to the Pierre Boulez Saal, Konzerthaus Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and London’s Wigmore Hall, among others collaborating with Malcolm Martineau, Wolfram Rieger, Sir András Schiff, Graham Johnson, and Joseph Middleton.

Highlights of the recent past include Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at the Staatsoper unter den Linden; Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri and Mozart’s Requiem with the Staatskapelle Berlin and Marc Minkowski; Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Musikkollegium Winterthur and Barbara Hannigan; and Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Sir George Benjamin.