Orlando: Ema Nikolovska, mezzo-soprano, with Sean Shibe, guitar
About the event
Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska returns to Koerner Hall with acclaimed guitarist Sean Shibe, in a riveting and eclectic concert that weaves together music across Schubert, John Dowland, Bob Dylan, Laurie Anderson, and others, alongside newly commissioned music by Sasha Scott, Cassandra Miller, Linda Catlin-Smith and Nahre Sol.
Orlando is a riff primarily on the character and energy of Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking 1928 novel, as well as subtle echoes of the medieval Chanson de Roland and Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso. The duo explores love, darkness/conflict, and identity through the old and new, electric and acoustic:
“The experience felt like being awake in a vivid dream… Their shared artistic purpose and daring made it gel, along with the melding of Sean Shibe’s endlessly nuanced playing and the expressive beauty of Nikolovska’s voice.” ( The Times )
Celebrated for her “focused, rich, and velvety” (The Times) voice, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska grew up in Toronto where she studied violin at The Taylor Academy, 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.
A former BBC New Generation Artist, Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship 2012 winner, Royal Philharmonic Society 2018 Young Artist Award winner, and recipient of the 2022 Leonard Bernstein Award, Scottish-Japanese guitarist Sean Shibe continues to prove himself a truly original mind at the frontier of contemporary classical music.
Please join us! This concert is preceded by a short performance by talented students of The Royal Conservatory. Prelude Recital starts at 6pm.
PROGRAM:
Ema Nikolovska describes the program: “Courtly love, conflict, identity, adventures traversing time and space, and the role of song, the life of the troubadour in the middle of it all - the fascinating, gallivanting, and almost science-fiction characters of Orlando from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando are at the heart of this program.”
Jules Massenet: O Souverin
John Dowland: Praeludium
John Dowland: Come Again, Sweet Love
John Dowland: Come Heavy Sleep
John Dowland: Think’st Thou Then by thy Feigning
Sasha Scott: 1000 Parts of You
Linda Catlin Smith: Dark Light
Thomas Adès: Blanca
Detlev Glanert: Hexensabbat
Franz Schubert: Einsamkeit, D 620
Detlev Glanert: Lied der Wehmut
Thomas Adès: “Habanera” from The Exterminating Angel
Nahre Sol: This Other Here
Maddie Ashman: Split
Cassandra Miller: Dream Memorandum (It Reminded Me of the Truth)
Hans Abrahamsen: See the Small, Limpid Well-Spring
Franz Schubert: “So laßt mich scheinen” from 4 Gesänge aus “Wilhelm Meister”, D.877
Ken Paxton: Be Kind
John Dowland: Orlando Sleepeth
Pauline Viardot: Aimez-moi
Bob Dylan: Masters of War
Laurie Anderson: O Superman
