Canadian-Macedonian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska was born in Skopje, Macedonia and emigrated to Toronto at a young age. Ema trained as a violinist and completed her undergraduate studies in violin performance at The Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music on full scholarship. She went on to complete the Artist Masters programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2016-2019 and is currently in her final year of the prestigious Guildhall Opera Course on full scholarship in London.
In May 2019 Ema was one of seven musicians from around the world chosen by BBC Radio 3 to join its prestigious New Generation Artists Scheme 2019-2021 and she was the first Canadian artist to be chosen. Founded in 1999 the scheme aims to nurture and promote the world’s best young musicians at the start of their international careers. New Generation Artists (NGAs) are given the opportunity to perform with the BBC orchestras, broadcast from some of the UK’s most prestigious venues and festivals, make audio recordings and collaborate with other NGAs in chamber music.
Ema is the recipient of numerous prizes including the Guildhall Wigmore Prize, second prize at the International Helmut Deutsch Lieder Competition, the 2018 Susan Longfield Prize and First Prize as well as the Audience Prize at the 25th Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards, to name just a few.
In May 2019 Ema made her debut recital at the historic Wigmore Hall in London. Other notable performances include recitals and masterclasses at the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, Thomas Hampson’s Heidelberger Frühling Lied Akademie, a recital with Malcolm Martineau in Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, and a performance of Ligeti’s Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel for mezzo and percussion ensemble at Milton Court Concert Hall for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Ligeti Total Immersion Day, broadcast on Radio 3. Highlights of Ema’s 2019 summer include the Verbier Festival Academy, a recital with Joseph Middleton at the Glenarm Festival of Voice, and the Creative Dialogue Symposium XI in Finland led by Kaija Saariaho, Anssi Karttunen and Daniel Belcher.
The core of Ema’s work as a classical singer is storytelling. Her Opera Course at the Guildhall is supplying Ema with the necessary tools to be an effective storyteller: movement, stagecraft and diction classes, extensive music coaching, in-depth work with a director and full technical crew on opera scenes presented, three major opera productions in the second year and collaborations with young composers and librettists. Ema’s interests lie in learning about how to use and celebrate the human voice to spark communication and imagination.
Ema’s future ambitions are just that, ambitious! With the skills she acquires through her London studies, Ema hopes to bring to Canada an international calibre of music-making and storytelling which she would like to use in the service of promoting new compositions and collaborations with other Canadians who work in the arts and a new approach to programming concerts in communities across the nation, creating a collective of like-minded artists, as well as initiatives for developing music education in a range of communities. Ema also plans to build a performance career in which she promotes fantastic Canadian music.
