Ema Nikolovska
Key Facts
- Instrument: Mezzo-soprano
Biography
Ema Nikolovska is on the Opera Course (2018-2020) at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Rudolf Piernay, and previously completed the Guildhall Artist Masters course with Prof. Piernay and Prof. Susan McCulloch. Ema was born in Skopje, Macedonia and spent most of her life in Toronto, Canada where she studied voice privately with Helga Tucker for seven years, and also completed undergraduate studies in violin performance on full scholarship at The Glenn Gould School with Paul Kantor and Barry Shiffman. Ema won the Guildhall Wigmore Prize (resulting in a debut evening recital at Wigmore Hall on 18 May, 2019 with duo partner Dylan Perez); the Singer’s Prize at the 2018 Gerald Moore Award; and Second Place Singer’s Prize at the first International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition in Vienna at Schlosstheater Schönbrunn with duo partner Michael Sikich in September 2018. Ema also won the 2018 Susan Longfield Prize at Guildhall, and First Prize and Audience Prize at the 25th Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards in Wigmore Hall. She was a semi-finalist at the Jack Donnelly Memorial Mozart Competition in London as well as the 3rd International Christmas Singing Competition in Minsk, Belarus. Her work in opera has included Le Journaliste Parisien/Le Peuple de Zanzibar in the Les Azuriales Young Artist Programme’s production of Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc (Nice, France in August 2018), as well as covering the role of The Mother in The Consul by Menotti (Guildhall School production, October 2017), Ericlea in The Return of Ulysses by Monteverdi (Royal Opera House production, January 2018), and Mother Bayard/Cousin Ermengarde in The Long Christmas Dinner by Hindemith (Guildhall School production, June 2018). In Canada, Ema was named a Jeune Ambassadeur Lyrique for 2016, and has performed as a soloist with the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra.
Ema was a Voice Fellow in the Art of Song Program at the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival 2015 (masterclasses with Soile Isokoski and Martin Katz), a Britten-Pears Young Artist in 2016 for the Slavic Song Course in Aldeburgh (masterclasses with Bernarda Fink), a participant in the 2017 Masterclasses at the Music Academy of Villecroze with Teresa Berganza, and the 2018 Les Azuriales Young Artists Programme. Ema was also a recipient of a Jacqueline Desmarais Grant to attend the Franz-Schubert-Institut 2017 on full scholarship in Baden bei Wien, Austria, and was invited to attend the Franz-Schubert-Institut once again in July 2018. Among her other work in art song, Ema was part of Graham Johnson’s Song Guild at Guildhall, as well as Thomas Hampson’s Lied Akademie at the Heidelberger Frühling Music Festival in April 2018; she performed a side-by-side recital with The Prince Consort in Wigmore Hall in May 2018, was a finalist at the 2018 Oxford Lieder Young Artists Platform with pianist Nathan Tinker, and performed with duo partner Dylan Perez at the October 2018 Oxford Lieder Festival. Upcoming performances include a Schubert Lieder recital with Malcolm Martineau at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin on 22 January; the spring Opera Scenes at Guildhall in March; performing Ligeti’s Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel for mezzo and percussion ensemble in Milton Court Concert Hall as part of BBC Radio 3’s Ligeti Total Immersion Day also in March; and the Guildhall Gold Medal Final on 10 May. Ema is grateful to the Shipley Rudge Scholarship and the London Syndicate for supporting her Opera Course studies, and to the Countess of Munster Musical Trust as a recipient of their ‘Star Award’ for 2018-2019.
Musicians’ Company Award: 2018 Silver Medal – GSMD
Page Updated: Jan 2019
Photo Credit: Lazar Nikolovsk