The Hjördis Schymberg Award 2024

Six young opera singers will compete in the final concert for the Hjördis Schymberg Award 2024, on February 24, at Tonhallen, The Sundsvall Concert Hall. They will sing together with the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Sundsvall, conducted by Damian Iorio. This competition was initiated to remember Hjördis Schymberg, the Swedish opera soprano. It has become an important venue for young Nordic opera singers, and it promotes networking in the world of opera.

Since 20218, the Schymbergsgården Foundation, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, and the Foundation for Soloists at the Stockholm Opera organise the Schymberg Award, the international competition for opera soloists. The competition seeks to promote young opera singing, an ideal to which Hjördis Schymberg was devoted. The Hjördis Schymberg Award takes place every second year. The final concert provides an opportunity to listen to opera singing at high level and to meet future opera stars.

- This was a successful event already from the start. The competition has received a high status in the opera world, and among the participants the level of opera skills is continuously increasing year by year, says Anders Olsson, secretary in the Schymbergsgården Foundation, and a project leader for the Schymberg Award.

In all, there were about a hundred singers who wanted to join the competition with digital recordings sent at the beginning of 2023. Of those, a Nordic jury chose 20 semifinalists who were asked for new recordings as a basis for the semifinals, which eventually brought five finalists. Those finalists, and one finalist from 2022 who unfortunately could not participate then because of the pandemic, will sing in the final concert at Tonhallen, Sundsvall, on February 24, at six p.m. Damian Iorio will conduct the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, and each one of the finalists will sing two opera arias. The Nordic jury – four experienced opera singers and one opera conductor – will on this occasion select two grant recipients, who will receive grants of SEK 50,000 and SEK 25,000, respectively.

Since its inception in 2018, the Hjördis Schymberg Award has offered a venue for young Nordic opera singers and created a network for Nordic singers, opera houses, and opera colleges.

On Hjördis Schymberg
Hjördis Schymberg was one of Sweden’s best-known opera sopranos, nationally and internationally. She sang, for instance, in more than 100 performances together with Jussi Björling, the Swedish tenor. She was born on the Isle of Alnö, outside Sundsvall, in 1909, and after a long and rich career as an opera singer she passed away in 2008, 99 years old. Hjördis Schymberg developed her childhood home, Schymbergsgården into a venue for young singers and musicians, with masterclasses and concerts.

The jury for the Schymberg Award 2024
Inger Dam-Jensen, opera singer, Köpenhamn
Ingebjørg Kosmo, opera singer, Oslo
Hillevi Martinpelto, opera singer, Stockholm
Petteri Salomaa, singer, professor at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki
Patrik Ringborg, opera conductor, Sverige, Tyskland.

Finalists in the Schymberg Award 2024
Zaza Gagua. When Zaza Gagua was born, he cried in quite a particular voice, and the nurse said to his parents: “He will be an opera singer.”

In spite of a successful career in law, with a master’s degree, he decided to give himself the chance to become an opera singer. He left his job, applied to Tbilisi conservatoire of music, and then he studied at the Sibelius Academy in Finland and subsequently an acquired a master’s degree at the Stockholm College of Opera. He has practical experience from the Oslo Opera, and he has performed I various opera houses in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, and Tbilisi, Georgia.

Eldrid Gorset. Eldrid Gorset is a soprano who comes from a small mountain area in Norway. She recently made her debut at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo, stepping in as Despina, and this winter she will sing as Euridice in Orphée aux Enfers, also at the Oslo opera. For two years Eldrid Gorset gained practical experience at the Kongelige Teater, Köpenhamn, where she has played various parts – Musetta, Zerlina, Clorinda and Frasquita. She is often soloist in oratorios and festivals, and she has performed the title role in Proserpina by Joseph Martin Kraus with Vasa Baroque. She has on several occasions performed the opera La Voix humaine by Francis Poulenc, and this part has become a signature part for her. In the summer of 2023 she was invited, together with the Queer Voices Opera Company, to Grimeborn Opera Festival, UK, as the first ever Norwegian. Eldrid has her education from the College of Opera (KHIO), Barratt Due, and the Norwegian College of Music, all in Oslo.

Josefine Mindus. Josefine Mindus started with composition in her education in music, before she decided to focus on singing. After studies at Vadstena Folkhögskola and other places, she moved to Hannover, Germany, for her BA programme in opera singing. Then, in 2020, she was a part of the Opera Studio at the Komische Oper in Berlin, where she sang parts like Papagena, Zerlina, and Amore. Josefine Mindus made her Swedish opera debut as Bess in the opera Breaking the Waves at the Vadstena Academy. She won second prize in “Bundeswettbewerb Gesang” in 2022 and gained the Jenny Lind Grant in 2023. During the spring of 2024 Josefine Mindus will sing her first Blonde in Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serial at the Bern opera house, and during the summer of 2024 she will make her Italian debut as Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice at “Festival dei Due Mondi” in Spoleto.

Kristine Nowlain. As a soprano Kristine Nowlain has a broad range in her artistry. She is seen and heard in all kinds of genres, from opera to oratorios, chamber music and lieder, with a particular love for Mozart, contemporary music and music by women. She was born and grew up in San francisco, California, in a Swedish-American family, and she has studied singing in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Malmö. In 2012, she gained her BA degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a major in music and minors in sociology and Latin American Studies. Her Swedish BA in music she gained from the Stockholm College of Music in 2018. In June 2020 she had her master’s degree in music drama from Malmö Opera Academy, an institution which connects Malmö Opera and the Malmö College of Music. Since then, she has freelanced as an opera singer and a concert singer at Malmö Opera, Malmö Operaverkstad, Opera Hedeland in Denmark, Nordic Opera and Nöjesteatern. She is often engaged as soloist in oratorios and concerts, for instance Elias by Mendelssohn at Berliner Philharmonie with Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester. Frankfurt. In the autumn of 2022 she participated in Min totala njutning [My total delight], a performance work by Lilith Studios in Malmö, text Daniel Mårs, music Philip Geisner, a work subsequently selected for the Performance Biennial in 2023.

Minna Tägil. Minna Tägil is a soprano, and she studies her final year of the opera programme at the College of Music and Opera, Mälardalen University, where she previously also gained her BA degree. She made her debut in the summer of 2023 when she made the leading part as Alice in Daniel Nelson’s Andefabriken [The Spirit Factory] at the Vadstena Castle with the Vadstena Academy.

Minna Tägil has sung with several orchestras, for instance the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, the Västerås Sinfonietta, and parts of Hovkapellet [the Stockholm Opera Orchestra]. In 2023 she was one of the finalists in the Åland competition The Voice of the Sea. She has performed children’s opera with the Småland Opera, and she has sung secular and sacred works like Förklädd Gud, Mozart’s Requiem and Vivaldi’s Gloria, and she was soloist at the Swedish opening of Erik Esenvald’s Passion and Resurrection and Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio. Minna Tägil has acquired grants from funds managed by the Royal Opera and the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.

In the spring of 2024 she will play Yvonne in the new opera called Stormen Betty [The Storm Betty] by Jan Sandström at the Västmanland Theatre. The part is composed with her voice in mind. In the summer of 2024, she will play Lisetta in the Swedish opening of Rossini’s opera La Gazzetta at Läckö Castle.

Rebecka Wallroth. Rebecka Wallroth has studied at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, and since 2023 she is a part of the Opera Studio at Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin. In August 2023 she was soloist with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and the Mozartists, Wigmore Hall, London. In 2023, Rebecka Wallroth won a finalist prize at the Queen Sonja Singing Competition, Norway. Also in 2023, she won second prize in the Stenhammar Competition. Rebecka Wallroth is the 2022 Anders wall and Aurora Lilieros grantee, and previously she gained the Joel Berglund grant. In the summer of 2023, she played Lilly in Andefabriken[The spirit factory] by Daniel Nelson, and she also played Idamante in Idomeneo by Mozart at Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, Wien.