Silje Marie Aker Johnsen

Silje Marie Aker Johnsen

Silje Marie Aker Johnsen (b. 1982) is one of the most promising young sopranos in Norway today. ”Bob Dylan and Edith Piaf stay, where others come and go… When I’m not singing: I think about things that concern music… That is, unless a friend or a movie or an apple pie is not diverting my attention.”

This is what soprano Silje Marie Aker Johnsen writes at the homepage of Det norske solistkor, where she is also a profiled member. Her musical child’s shoes frequented the Tønsberg Cathedral girl’s choir and the Tønsberg Cultural School. After taking private lessons from Runa Skramstad, she commenced with song studies at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, and then went to Universität der Künste in Berlin before she rounded off a master’s degree in song at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2008.

Silje Marie Aker Johnsen is still active as soloist in church musical pieces, romance concerts, opera and contemporary music. She did soprano parts in pieces such as Stabat Mater by Pergolesi and Gloria by Vivaldi. In May 2006, she did the main female part in the chamber opera A Gentle Spirit by John Tavener in Berlin, staged by the Berliner Kammeroper. She is also quite into contemporary music, and has performed in several premiere pieces.