Ema is a BBC New Generation Artist 2019-2021, a YCAT Artist, and recently won the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize at the 2019 Kathleen Ferrier Awards as well as the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, both with Gary Beecher. Ema won the Singers’ Prize at the Gerald Moore Award; second place at the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition with Michael Sikich; the Susan Longfield Prize, and First and Audience Prizes at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards.
Masterclasses include the Art of Song Programme at the Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival, Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, Music Academy of Villecroze, Les Azuriales, the Franz-Schubert-Institut, and Thomas Hampson’s Lied Akademie at the Heidelberger Frühling Music Festival.
Among recent notable performances were a debut recital at Wigmore Hall with pianist Dylan Perez, the Guildhall Gold Medal Final in the Barbican Hall, and a Schubert Lieder recital with Malcolm Martineau at the Pierre Boulez Saal.
Upcoming engagements include Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique, the Creative Dialogue XI Symposium led by Kaija Saariaho in Finland, a recital of French song with Joseph Middleton in Northern Ireland, a recital with Gary Beecher at the Oxford Lieder Festival, and the role of Celia in La fedeltà premiata by Haydn (Guildhall School production).
Ema is grateful to the Shipley Rudge Scholarship and London Syndicate, as well as The Countess of Munster Musical Trust for supporting her studies.
Michael Sikich, 26, is a versatile pianist, song recitalist, and répétiteur. A native of Santa Barbara, California, he has performed in the United States, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and around the UK, most notably at the Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, LSO St. Luke's, Cadogan Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, and on broadcasts for BBC Radio 3. He made his BBC Proms debut last summer in a recital of American music honoring the centennial of Leonard Bernstein with mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta. He is a prizewinner of the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition and a recipient of the Somerset Song Prize for best pianist as well as the piano accompaniment prize from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he completed a postgraduate degree in vocal accompaniment with Julius Drake on scholarship. He was a semifinalist at the 2017 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition and was invited to perform in Graham Johnson's Song Guild. A recipient of awards as a solo pianist, he gave his debut recital in the Belz-Parker Young Artist Series and has performed with orchestras throughout the United States. Michael earned his bachelor of music degree in piano performance under Edward Auer at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as a recipient of the Premier Young Artist Award. An avid répétiteur, Michael worked as an apprentice this summer at the Berlin Opera Academy and has been a vocal piano fellow at the Music Academy of the West. He has also attended the Franz Schubert Institute, the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Banff Centre, and the PianoTexas International Academy, working with esteemed musicians including James Conlon, Marilyn Horne, Helmut Deutsch, Jerome Lowenthal, and Yoheved Kaplinsky. He has been invited to attend the Georg Solti Accademia Rèpètiteur Course in Venice in the upcoming year. He is currently based in Vienna, Austria, and continues his studies with Julius Drake at the Kunstuniversität Graz.