Soile Isokoski

Currently one of the finest singers performing her repertoire, Soile Isokoski is a regular guest on the most renowned stages and concert halls in the world.

A native of Finland, Soile Isokoski graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and made her concert début there in 1986. In 1987 Isokoski won Second prize in the BBC Singer of the World Competition and subsequently won First prize in the Elly Ameling and Tokyo International Singing Competitions. After her opera début as Mimí in La Bohème at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki she went on to capture audiences and critics in the opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, London, Milan and Paris and also at the festivals in Salzburg, Savonlinna, Edinburgh and Orange.

Isokoski continues to work together with many renowned conductors including Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa, John Elliot Gardiner, Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Bernhard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Valerij Gergiev, Pierre Boulez and James Levine. She has a wide-ranging concert repertoire and regularly gives recitals with her permanent accompanist Marita Viitasalo. These, and other recitals, have taken her to London (Wigmore Hall), Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin (Philharmonic Hall), Munich, Vienna (Musikverein), Rome, Athens, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tokyo, to name but a few.

They have also recorded works by numerous Scandinavian composers as well as Schubert and Schumann. Among her most cherished recordings are the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss under the baton of Marek Janowski together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award) as well as Hugo Wolf’s Italian Songbook together with Bo Skovhus and Marita Viitasalo (Ondine).

Recent and future engagements include: Othello in Paris’ Bastille (2005), Lohengrin (2006), Cosí fan tutte, Rosenkavalier, La Juive (2008) in Vienna, Yevgeni Onegin in Helsinki (2006), Ariadne auf Naxos in Monte Carlo(2006), Der Rosenkavalier in San Francisco(2007), Capriccio (2005-2007), Peter Grimes (2007) in Dresden, Cosí fan tutte (2008) in Bilbao and Le nozze di Figaro (2006), Don Giovanni (2009) at the Met in New York.

In honour of her notable contribution to Finnish music Isokoski was awarded with the Pro-Finlandia medal in December 2002.