Ema Nikolovska
The title role, however, is a challenge that Ema Nikolovska carried with admirable intensity. Neuwirth writes the part as a vocal metamorphosis: the male Orlando initially moves in darker registers; only with the gender transformation do coloratura and bright high notes open up. Later follow spoken-song passages, amplified passages, and almost aggressive rock songs. Nikolovska mastered all of this with technical mastery and remarkable stage presence.
Opera Wire, Zenaida des Aubris
Ema Nikolovska’s Orlando made a positive impression thanks to her warm mezzo, finely controlled vibrato and a chameleonic sense of different music styles. Her stage presence, veered towards the youthful and idealistic of a typical mezzo role, was also convincing.
Bachtrack, Elena Luporini
As I was leaving Koerner Hall Sunday afternoon, having attended the recital given by Macedonian Canadian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska and French-Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, I couldn’t help but felt that I had witnessed something extraordinary…I went to the concert Sunday expecting a typical recital featuring two very fine musicians. What I got was a veritable tour-de-force, a young singer putting her unique, personal stamp on a recital in such a way that few young singers would dare to try. Fearless and inimitable, Ema Nikolovska opened her artistic world and invited everyone in.
Ludwig van Toronto, Joseph So
Nikolovska’s voice is focused, rich, and velvety. Though she is at the beginning of her career, her sound is mature and her instinct for interpretation highly developed…This was first-rate Debussy, filled with color and nuance, great sensuality when required, insight and seriousness of purpose throughout…a comedienne prepared to do anything and everything for a joke. She brought Lucille Ball and Dame Patricia Routledge to mind, and the audience responded with titters, giggles, and, finally, belly laughs…The poise, shining pride, and sense of identity burnished all we had heard earlier, defining a young mezzo-soprano with a great deal to say and the technique to say it with passion and eloquence… a remarkable tour-de-force recital and well worth the wait.
Classical Voice America, David Gordon Duke
The future of this privileged voice seems to have no limits.
Ópera Actual, Antoni Colomer
Taking over from Marianne Crebassa in Aix, Ema Nikolovska gave an outstanding performance as Woman, caressing Benjamin’s sinuous writing with an unbearable tenderness.
Backtrack, Stephen Pritchard
Ema Nikolovska sings with poise and impact throughout. Simply dressed in a frock and trench-coat, she is urgent but never over-emotional, only rising to fury in a central aria in which she expresses her disillusionment that her quest is futile and condemned to fail. Instead, she uses nuanced vocal colours and beautiful phrasing to delineate her changing moods.
Claire Seymour, Opera Today
Her exceptional communication and dramatic skill…was a tour de force of quite terrifying skill.
musicomh.com, Melani Eskenazi
…a true rising star.
Classic FM
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Discography
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 in Voice at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where she also completed the Opera Course. Ema was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-2022. In 2019 she won first prize at the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize (Kathleen Ferrier Awards), and was a prize-winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions. In 2022 she became a recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust award.
In the 2026/27 season, Ema returns to the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro and to the Canadian Opera Company for her role debut as Komponist/Ariadne auf Naxos. She sings Phèdre in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre in Paris and Purcell’s Dido and Æneas with Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie in Quebec City and Montréal. In its 300th anniversary year, Ema tours Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Asia with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra and Andreas Reize.
Last season, Ema made three milestone role debuts: Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro at Opernhaus Zürich, the title role of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando at Komische Oper Berlin, and Niklausse in Lydia Steier’s new production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin where, as an alumna of their Opera Studio, her roles include Stéfano in Roméo et Juliette and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.
A champion of contemporary music, Ema has premiered works by Sasha Scott, Cassandra Miller and Héloïse Werner. She made her debut last season with Ensemble Intercontemporain in Boulez’s Le Marteau sans maître and returned to Wigmore Hall with Hikaru Kanki in a recital featuring songs by Dai Fujikura and Sato Matsui. In 2023 she sang the Woman in George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This, making her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She revived the role in 2024 at Opéra du Rhin, Strasbourg.
Her exceptional concert experience includes Mozart’s Coronation Mass with Mozarteum Orchestra and Roberto González-Monjas at the Salzburg Festival, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri and Mozart’s Requiem with Staatskapelle Berlin and Marc Minkowski, Jaquet de la Guerre’s Céphale et Procris with Reinoud van Mechelen and Nocte Temporis, Mendelssohn’s Elias with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and Howard Arman, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Musikkollegium Winterthur and Barbara Hannigan, Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and George Benjamin, and Scriabin’s First Symphony with the Danish Radio Symphony and Fabio Luisi, released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2025. Last season, she sang her first Mahler’s Second Symphony with Alexander Shelley and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa.
An internationally celebrated recitalist, her partners have included Martha Argerich, Andras Shiff, Charles Richard-Hamelin, and guitarist, Sean Shibe in concerts throughout Europe, Canada and North America, including her debut in 2024 at Carnegie’s Weill Hall. She is a regular favourite at Wigmore Hall, where she was an artist in residence in the 2023/24 season. Elsewhere, Ema has performed at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and at the Schubertíada Vilabertran, Verbier, Heidelberg, Gstaad, Aldeburgh, Leeds Lieder and Toronto Summer Music Festivals, collaborating with Malcolm Martineau, Wolfram Rieger, Andras Schiff, Graham Johnson, Joseph Middleton, Kunal Lahiry amongst others.
Her first solo recording featuring Schubert orchestrated songs with Nicolas Ellis and Agora Orchestra is released this season on the Aparté label.
Schubert: Erlkönig, D. 328 (excerpt)
Copland: “The world feels Dusty” & Prokofiev: No. 5 from Five Songs Without Words, Op. 35
Schubert: “Der Unglückliche” D. 713 & “Nacht und Träume” D. 827
Neuwirth: Orlando
Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen, Act 2 (excerpt)
Contact
General Management
Sue Spence, Askonas Holt Limited
New Wing, Somerset House, Strand
London WC2R 1LA UK
Tel: ++44 20 7400 1700
Email: [email protected]
Management (The Americas)
Bill Palant, Étude Arts
Ansonia Station, Post Office Box 230132
New York, New York 10023
Tel: 929.777.0775
Email: [email protected]
Management (Concert/Recital: Austria and Germany)
Johanna Herbst Artist Management
Tel: +49 176 70164402
Email: [email protected]