Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska is currently on a recital tour of North America. Her recital partner on the Canadian leg is pianist Charles-Richard Hamelin, acclaimed for his own work as both soloist and chamber musician.
The all-Canadian duo is bringing an imaginative and eclectic vocal program to a series of concerts across Canada. They hit Toronto’s Koerner Hall on March 24.
We spoke to Ema about the tour.
The Interview
It’s been a busy year so far for Ema Nikolovska, and that on top of a rapid rise in the world of international opera. With a Master’s in Voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Ema went on to become a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-2022. In 2022, she received the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and made her debut with the Staatsoper Berlin in the 2022-23 season.
The 2023/24 season has seen her her debut at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre in the lead role in George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This, along with recent her house and role debut with the Canadian Opera Company in the role of the Fox in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.
How does she stay focused?
“I’ve recently started meditating more frequently and more regularly,” she says. “It’s helped me a lot. I do a lot of reading, that keeps me grounded,” she adds. “I’m trying to figure out how to integrate fitness in my schedule.” That can be hard when you’re on the road so much. “My gym is traveling,” she laughs.
Excerpt of Act 2 of The Cunning Little Vixen with Jane Archibald and Ema Nikolovska:
The Tour
The tour is just another first. “I’ve never had a recital tour before.” They’ll be hitting eight cities along the way. “I’m really over the moon.” She loved the idea of exploring song and chamber music in North America after having spent the last few years in Europe.
Her COC debut was a special moment. “I saw people in the orchestra pit in Cunning Vixen that I used to study with,” she says. Others, including former fellow students and teachers, were in the audience. “I see a huge part of my musical life is encapsulated in Toronto. It was really emotional for me to perform there in January and February.”
Making the Canadian dates of the tour with Charles-Richard was her idea. The tour itself has been about two years in the making, she reports.
“It’s remarkable how it’s all been sequenced.”
The COC engagement was her first professional opera appearance in Canada. She’ll be making her debut in eight cities with the current tour, including performances of Stravinsky’s Les Noces with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Kent Nagano, along with the recital.
The tour showcases her diverse tastes as an artist and performer. “I’m passionate about all the forms that my voice can do,” she says.
She’s also enjoying the opportunity to see so much of Canada. The Macedonian-born vocalist grew up in Toronto, and studied violin at the Glenn Gould School before switching to voice.
Collaborators
After her agent’s initial contact with the idea of a North American tour, she came up with the idea of using a Canadian pianist for the Canadian dates, and an American pianist for those south of the border.
“It was important to me to ask Charles if he was available,” she says. Luckily, the dates fit. “He’s a phenomenal musician. Such a good listener,” she says. “Charles and I actually met when I was 16, and he was 20.”
The two of them (along with future conductor Nicholas Ellis and others) were taking master classes at the Orford Summer Music Institute at the time. Ema was studying violin. They spoke as fellow students, and she knew he was her choice for the recital tour. (She reports that she’s also performing a concert of Schubert songs arranged by composer Ian Cusson with Ellis next season.)
“That’s how we reunited. We hadn’t really seen each other since we were much younger. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him.”
“I love working with so many different duo partners,” she adds. Each brings something unique to the collaboration. “In April, I’m going to work with Joseph Middleton in Leeds.” In June, there will be Andreas Schiff. “There are so many musical partners in my life.”
For the American dates of the current tour, which include a Carnegie Hall recital, she’ll be performing with pianist Howard Watkins. He was also a personal choice, based on previous work they’d done together.
“Howard and I met in May 2021,” she says. Both were part of a project celebrating African American composers, Ema being the only Canadian involved. The project was recorded in Hamburg.
Watkins is also assistant conductor of New York’s Met Opera, among other things, and the project expanded into a few other concerts performed together. Fortunately, his schedule was also clear to perform on the current tour dates.
“I feel honoured that I get to work with these two artists.”
With pianist James Middleton, Danika Lorèn’s Sex lives of vegetables ‘Cauliflower’:
The Program
The program for the Canadian dates of the recital tour consists of:
- Franz Schubert: Im Frühling D. 882; Dass sie hier gewesen D. 775; Herbst D. 945; Der Unglückliche D. 713]
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op.37b; VI. June
- Margaret Bonds: Songs of the Seasons, Poème d’Automne; Winter Moon; Young Love in Spring; Summer Storm
- Claude Debussy: Images oubliées, L.87; I. Lent; Ariettes Oubliées, L. 60
- Nikolai Medtner: Twilight, Op. 24 No. 4; Sleeplessness, Op. 37 No. 1
- Nicolas Slonimsky: Five Advertising Songs, Utica Sheets and Pillowcases; Pillsbury Bran Muffins; Vauv Nose Powder; Children Cry for Castoria; Make This a Day of Pepsodent
“The way I that I constructed it was, I wanted there to be something for everyone.” That includes songs that celebrate sensuality, beauty, humour, and everything in between. “[It’s] a celebration of so many of the different aesthetics and energies that I love in song. I wanted to do something that’s a bit of a taster menu of traditional song aesthetics, but also mixed with things you wouldn’t normally hear.”
That includes both the familiar and the surprising, and a kind of dramaturgical flow between the songs. She speaks between the songs to give context. “What does silence mean? How does silence give context — or an absence of context?”
It adds to the emotional impact of the songs. “A song is a whole world in three minutes,” she explains. “What is the function of every song?” Each one has a purpose in the program as a whole. “All of them are informing each other. I think of it in this curatorial way. You go with your instincts,” she adds, mentioning that the danger lies in becoming too cerebral. Imagining herself in the audience helps to keep perspective.
“Through curating the recital, I’m in charge of some kind of framework of taking the audience through some kind of rhythm, or an experience.” The ending or ultimate interpretation, though is left open so that the audience can engage with it on their own terms. “I don’t want to connect all the dots.”
The theme of the first half may seem obvious. “Yes, it’s about seasons, but it’s loosely about seasons.” She points out that their significance and meaning, and the compositional approach, are widely divergent.
It was the Howard Watkins project back in 2021 that brought one of the works into her focus. “That’s where I first heard Margaret Bond’s Songs of the seasons,” she explains. She got hold of the rare manuscript for the music via the recording project, and it led her to dig deeper when it came to the research process for programming music.
“I don’t think there’s a right way to process this programming,” she says. Her wish is for audience members to feel part of the experience. “I like to encourage them to choose their own adventure. I really see what we’re doing as a collaboration.”
Curation allows her to create a kind of emotional architecture that listeners can experience in their own way.
The ad songs are probably the most surprising addition. “He wrote these in the 20s,” she notes. Russian-born Slominski came to the US as an enthusiastic fan of capitalism. “I find them absolutely hilarious.” Ema wanted to juxtapose the different energies of all the pieces together. “It’s interesting to examine all this,” she says. “I think I wanted to create a recital that could be accessed on a lot of different levels of listening.”
It’s a tour not only geographically, but of the possibilities of vocal art music. Ema says she honed her ideas on programming through asking for advice and feedback from other artists. In the end, though, it’s all for the audience’s benefit.
“Embrace whatever way of listening you find yourself in at that moment,” she says. “As an audience member, you can be creative in your listening. It’s an experience that is for them. We are all sharing something sensual together.” Even the hall itself plays a role. “The quality of silence is different in every hall. The hall is an extension of your instrument,” she says.
“There is no right way to absorb this music.”
- Tickets and more information about the March 24 concert at Toronto’s Koerner Hall [HERE].
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