Soile Isokoski, one of the most celebrated sopranos of Finland, graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and made her stage debut at the Finnish National Opera. From there she went on to capture audiences and critics worldwide and in honour of her notable contribution to Finnish music, Ms. Isokoski was awarded with the Pro-Finlandia medal in 2002.

Soile Isokoski’s name originally implies “the northern light,” which she now carries to the world in a most exceptional way. A regular guest of the most renowned opera houses, she is also a familiar face on the world’s most prestigious concert stages, working with many of the great conductors of our time such as Philippe Herreweghe, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa, John Elliot Gardiner, Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski, Bernhard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Valerie Gergiev, Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Leif Segerstam and Michael Tilson Thomas among others, as well as giving numerous recitals with her permanent accompanist Marita Viitasalo.

She earned special recognition for such recordings as Strauss’ Four Last Songs under Marek Janowski (Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award 2002) as well as two Sibelius CDs under the baton of Leif Segerstam: Luonnotar and Orchestral songs (MIDEM classical award, ‘Vocal award’ and ‘Disc of the Year’ at the BBC Music Magazine 2007), and Kullervo together with Tommi Hakala (Diapason d’or 2008). In 2007 she was awarded the Sibelius Medal and was honoured with the title of Austrian Kammersängerin in 2008. This year she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki.

Besides role debuts as Tatyana Eugene Onegin in Helsinki, Ellen Orford Peter Grimes in Dresden and Blanche de la Force Dialogues des Carmélites in Munich, Isokoski’s recent engagements have included Rachel La Juive, Marshellin Rosenkavalier in London, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Marguerite Faust in Vienna, Desdemona Otello in Berlin, Madame Lidoine Dialogues des Carmelites, and Elsa Lohengrin in Los Angeles, among many others.

Forthcoming engagements include Marshallin Der Rosenkavalier in Geneva, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni at Los Angeles Opera, Desdemona Otello in Vienna, Lohengrin in Dresden and Ariadne Ariadne auf Naxos at Glyndebourne.

Soile Isokoski is represented by Intermusica.
January 2012 / 352 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.

R.Strauss Lieder; (Ondine)
“That voice, one of the most beautiful of our times.”
Marc Zisman, Qobuz.com, January 2012

Mrs. Alice Ford in Falstaff / Theatre Du Capitole
Cond. Daniele Callegari / Dir. Nicolas Joel
“Soile Isokoski sings with security and control.”
Maurice Salles, Forum Opera.com, December 2011

“From her first notes the incredible Alice soprano Soile Isokoski first appearance ran thrills through the spine. We have here a very great lady of song. Voice of a perfectly round, bright timbre, perfect consistency, dramatic vocal line, a presence of femininity and nobility to which it is easy to succumb.”
Robert Pénavayre, Classic Toulouse, December 2011

“Amongst the ‘old wives’, Soile Isokoski was a witty Alice; a talented actress and a first class soprano. Her tone was rich in nuances, and her top notes came easily: the Finnish singer lived up to her reputation.”
Anne-Marie Chouchan, Ladepeche.fr, December 2011

Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites FP159 (DVD) / Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper
Bayerisches Staatsorchester / Cond. Kent Nagano
”Isokoski, suitably dignified in her role, is in ravishing voice.“
Roger Pines, International Record Review, July/August 2011

Song Recital acc. Marita Viitasalo
Kuopio Concert Hall
“Isokoski comes on stage and lets the music speak with her sparkling clear voice and seamless collaboration with the pianist Marita Viitasalo.” (translated from Finnish)
John Mattila, www.savonsanomat.fi, February 2011

Vienna State Opera / Weber Der Freischutz
"At the other end of the spectrum, Soile Isokoski brought supreme control to Agathe's aria 'Und ob die Wolke' from Weber's Der Freischütz. Under the serene direction of Peter Schneider, the orchestra collaborated with Isokoski to take us into Weber's proto-Romantic world, producing one of the most satisfying highlights of the concert."
David Laviska, MusicalCriticism.com, January 2011

LA Opera / Wagner Lohengrin / cond. James Conlon, dir. Lydia Steier
"Isokoski's sweetly toned voice, however, expresses what the staging does not."
Jim Farber, Daily News Los Angeles, November 2010

Wigmore Hall Recital
“...her immaculate intonation and pearly clarity of tone were a consistent pleasure.”
Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph, November 2009

“A distinguished Mozart and Strauss singer, Isokoski has a purity of tone and silvery sound which suits the smoother vocal lines of the 1948 version of the cycle – though Hindemith's writing is seldom straightforwardly homophonic, the precision of Isokoski's voice meant that the melodic line was never obscured.”
Music Omh, November 2009

“That Isokoski made such an impression is due to the aptness of her voice and her suggestion of the ecstatic by the sparsest of means. In a work that tells us that the stars in heaven can sing, the beauty of Isokoski's tone seemed to open vistas on to the unearthly. Her refined delivery allowed her to express soaring visionary rapture and to react to Christ's passion with clipped, syllabic pain.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, November 2009

Royal Opera House / Marshallin Der Rosenkavalier
“As the Marschallin, Soile Isokoski offers taste and discretion.”
George Hall, The Stage, December 2009

“Isokoski is an experienced exponent of Strauss's music. She imbued a natural aristocratic air to the Marshcallin, without being haughty, and her rich soprano produced ardent tones.”
Kevin Rogers, Classical Source, December 2009

“Isokoski sang with her usual elegance – clean, shining tone, a firmly shaped line.”
Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph, December 2009

Helsinki PO with Mikko Franck / Scene d'amore CD
“Deploying her well-produced and fresh tone with skill and imagination, Soile Isokoski defines eight lyric soprano heroines, each one quite different. Throughout, her control never limits expression. Tchaikovsky's Tatyana (Eugune Onegin) is credibly youthful and emotionally alert, Bizet's Micaëla (Carmen) a more mature and considered individual. Hers is a rich and complex study of Gounod's Marguerite (Faust) in her extended double solo scene, which is technically impeccable. She presents a fully three-dimensional Mimi (La boheme), finds darker colours for Liu farewell in Turandot, and in another long extract from Otello she conveys Dedemona's presentiment of death in her tone.

It's remarkable achievement, underpinned with consistently excellent musicianship. All of this is familiar material, but Iskoksi has thought it through both textually and musically. As a result, one listens with renewed attention, surprised by the wealth of possibilities she discovers.”
BBC Music Magazine, September 2008

“More than 20 years have passed since the Finnish soprano reached the final of the 1987 Cardiff (now BBC) Singer of the World competition. Since then, her meteoric rise as one of the outstanding Mozart and Richard Strauss sopranos of our day has masked the range of her operatic repertoire. Here, she tackles Mimi’s Act One aria and one of her newest roles, Tatyana, in the letter scene from Yevgeny Onyegin, and it would be hard to think of any singer today who sings either more exquisitely. To these she adds Micaela from Carmen, Marguerite from Faust and two lyric roles to which she sounds ideally suited, Desdemona and Amelia Grimaldi from Simon Boccanegra. Is there a more beautiful soprano voice in opera today? Listening to her rapt, long-breathed phrasing of Come, in quest’ora bruna, from Boccanegra, and Desdemona’s Willow Song and Ave Maria, it’s hard to think of one.”
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times, September 2008

“’Patrician’ and ‘aristocratic’ are epithets that critics habitually reach for when describing Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski, a favourite at the Vienna Staatsoper but heard all too rarely in Britain. In her early fifties, Isokoski still preserves the pure, rounded tone, dead-centre intonation and shining top notes that have always been her hallmarks. She is a scrupulous stylist, never forcing her voice, and spinning seamless lines on apparently inexhaustible reserves of breath. Voice-fanciers have long been lamenting that true legato is a dying art. With Isokoski around, it is not dead yet.

Elsewhere Isokoski is impassioned and anguished in Micaëla's ‘rescue’ aria from Carmen, while really caring for the curve of the glorious melody. She lightens her tone in a delightful, subtly coloured account of Mimì's aria from La bohème, soaring thrillingly at the climax, and is true and touching in Liù's farewell, with no hint of mawkishness.

Amelia's bittersweet aria from Simon Boccanegra is a model of delicate expression and fine-spun Verdian cantabile, slightly compromised by the orchestra's over-emphatic evocation of the shimmering Mediterranean night. But in the main, Franck accompanies sensitively, nowhere more so than in Desdemona's ‘Willow Song’ and ‘Ave Maria’, where Isokoski's poignant simplicity is shot through with foreboding, even terror.”
Richard Wigmore, The Telegraph, September 2008

BBC Proms
“This was always going to be one of the season's high-spots, and it even surpassed expectations. To hear the ravishing Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski singing Strauss's Four Last Songs made one glad to be alive, eclipsing memories of some recent, enervating Proms and raising the spirits heavenwards.

The concert was dedicated to the late Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, whose name is forever associated with these Strauss songs, but Isokoski definitively showed that the art of interpreting them is by no means a thing of the past.

"First of all, there was the voice itself, a pure, rich stream of golden, russet timbre perfectly suited to the music's autumnal mood. And then there was Isokoski's wondrous way of communicating the songs' valedictory emotional sensibility, through clear diction but also through the fact that she seemed not merely to be singing the songs but living them out.”
Geoffrey Norris, Daily Telegraph, August 2006

Wigmore Hall
"She ranks among today's finest sopranos by virtue of the fact that her voice is one of the greatest in the world, hitting you in the solar plexus each time you listen to it. On a concert platform, however, she's remarkably self-effacing, never indulging in self-conscious histrionics and concentrating all her energies on the expressive potential of the glorious sound that issues from her throat.

Music by Sibelius, Berg and Strauss formed the bulk of the programme. Isokoski is particularly wonderful in Sibelius. With A Dragonfly, Isokoski's voice seemed to hover in the air, in imitation of the creature's flight before sinking to rest in quiet contemplation of its mortality. The Girl Came From Her Lover's Tryst, with its balladic repetitions and morbid refrains, brought out a hint of steel beneath the gilded opulence of the sound, and a tremendous sense of feverish drama.

Isokoski's singing has sometimes been described as noninterventionist, which is far from true. If anything, her performance of Berg's Seven Early Songs occasionally sacrificed spontaneity to textual illumination: in Liebesode, for instance, a dip into her chest register during the passage about the scent of roses drifting into the lovers' bedroom was an effect of startling indecency, although it also intruded on the song's pulsating flow. In the Strauss songs, however, meaning and sound were perfectly integrated. She was breathtaking in Morgen and at her rapturous best in Cäcilie, which closed the group. Pianist Marita Viitasalo, her regular accompanist for nearly 20 years, mirrored Isokoski's every emotional shift with playing that combined lucidity with great intensity.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, June 2006

Concert Minneapolis / St Paul, Minnesota
“The evening's most impressive soloist, however, was the Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski, who sang Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. More than a few singers have captured the mood of autumnal melancholy of these songs, but very few can surmount the technical difficulties the songs present, especially the high notes. Isokoski, on the other hand, made them sound easy, those high A's and B's, and her lack of vibrato gave a wholly appropriate sense of detachment to her interpretation. She sounded at the end, as the poet's voice longs for sleep and death, purged of human cares, offering, with the orchestra and Vänskä's astute leadership, a mood of exalted lyricism.”
Michael Anthony, Star Tribune

Sibelius CD
“Isokoski interprets these inspired miniatures with a blend of tenderness and passion, a richness of timbre and subtle dynamic inflections, with soaring lines magically floated and tailored. Sibelius's orchestral accompaniments, so deft in defining different moods, are a bonus in Leif Segerstam's assured handling. Newcomers to Sibelius's songs could find no more persuasive introduction; aficionados will be entranced.”
Geoffrey Norris, The Telegraph