Soprano Channa Malkin is known for her compelling musical personality and unbridled creativity. Since her operatic debut at age 16 as Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Dutch National Opera, she has built an international career across opera, concert, and recital, distinguished by strong narrative choices and emotional authenticity.
In October 2025, she released her critically acclaimed third solo album, FURY/MERCY (Challenge Classics), featuring arias by Antonio Vivaldi with the baroque orchestra La Sfera Armoniosa led by Mike Fentross. The album received rave reviews in Dutch and international press. NRC wrote that “the focus is consistently on the authenticity of emotion rather than on polishing the sound — an approach that makes the album profoundly gripping, as something truly essential is clearly at stake in this performance.” A tour of the FURY / MERCY programme is in development for the 2026/2027 season.
Recent highlights include the title role in Händel’s Acis and Galatea in Málaga and numerous appearances at theRoyal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, including an opera gala, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Fauré’s Requiem, and her recital debut. Opera Today praised her “pure and smooth voice, but full of feeling.”
As a soloist, Channa has appeared with leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Holland Baroque, Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, among others, working with conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Ingo Metzmacher, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and early music specialists Joshua Rifkin, Andrew Parrott, and Andrea Marcon. Her performances have taken her throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States, and she has appeared at festivals such as the Göttingen Händel Festival and the Utrecht Early Music Festival.
Her operatic repertoire includes Poppea, Despina, Zerlina, Pamina, Papagena, Charite (Cadmus et Hermione), Eve (In the Beginning, world premiere), Second Niece (Peter Grimes), and all female roles in Grieg’s Peer Gynt. In concert, she is a regular interpreter of Bach, Händel, and Mozart oratorios and is strongly committed to contemporary music, including the premiere of Josef Malkin’s cantata Yizkor in Europe and the United States.
A passionate recital artist, Channa creates thematically driven programmes that connect music to personal and societal stories. Her debut album Songs of Love and Exile (2019), created with guitarist Izhar Elias, marked the beginning of a long-standing duo collaboration of over ten years and received wide critical acclaim. Her second album, This Is Not a Lullaby, with pianist Artem Belogurov and cellist Maya Fridman, explored the unromanticized reality of new motherhood and was praised by Opernglas and De Volkskrant for its emotional depth.
Committed to expanding the reach of classical music, she co-created the multimedia opera Händel goes Tinder, which has toured major festivals and played over 40 sold-out performances. From 2026, Channa Malkin has been the Artistic Director of Musica Antica Den Haag, one of the Netherlands’ leading early music concert series. Alongside her artistic work on stage and in the recording studio, she works as a Professional Integration Coach for Master’s students at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. She lives in Amsterdam with her husband and two children.
