The Israeli-born contralto Noa Frenkel is an extremely versatile artist. At home in works of all eras, she has made an especial name for herself in the field of contemporary music. Numerous composers have written works especially for her. She performs regularly with ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Israel Contemporary Players, Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik and the SWR Experimental Studio, at leading festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Ruhrtriennale, the Salzburg Festival and the Wien Modern Festival.
Highlights of 2025/26 have included world premieres with the Basel Sinfonietta and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Francesco Filidei’s Accabadora at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Rebecca Saunders’s Us Dead Talk Love with Ensemble Nikel at TIME: SPANS 2025 in New York, at the Festival d’Automne in Paris and at Theater Essen.
Important opera performances have included the world premieres of Jörn Arnecke / Falk Richter’s Welcome to Paradise Lost (Kunstfest Weimar) and Chaya Czernowin’s Heart Chamber (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Johannes Kalitzke’s Kapitän Nemos Bibliothek (Bregenz and Schwetzingen SWR Festivals), Subnormal Europe by Óscar Escudero (Munich Biennale), Sofia Gubaidulina’s Stunde der Seele, Thierry Pécou’s Nahasdzáán and Hans Zender’s Don Quijote de la Mancha.
In concert repertory she has performed with ensembles including the Orchestre de Paris, the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Her repertory stretches from Handel’s Dixit Dominus to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Verdi’s Messa da Requiem and on to Bernstein’s Songfest, Sciarrino’s Vanitas, Dusapin’s Penthesilea, Feldman’s Three Voices and Franco Donatoni’s Abyss.
She has also worked with Baroque ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and Ensemble Elyma, and was a co-founder of the Kassiopeia Quintet, with which she has recorded the complete madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo.
She has performed her solo programme Solitude in the Age of Mass Media in Tel Aviv, Madrid and the Netherlands. At the Salzburg Festival her appearances have included Mozart / Czernowin’s Zaide / Adama and Nono’s Prometeo and Guai ai gelidi mostri.
Since 2017 Noa Frenkel has been a professor of singing at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
