The Finnish soprano, Tiina-Maija Koskela, attended the international Lied-masterclass at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels before finishing her studies in opera singing at the Sibelius Academy with Seppo Ruohonen with distinction. Since then, she has been perfecting her studies with Mika Kares, Tom Krause and Jaakko Ryhänen. In 2008, she won the Lappeenranta singing contest as well as the international Lauritz-Melchior competition for Wagner singers in 2014. In 2013, she was granted a Bayreuth scholarship by the Finnish Wagner Society.
 
Koskela made her debut at the Finnish National Opera in 2008, at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 2009, and at the Tampere Opera in 2013. The quality of her clear and powerful voice excels especially in the works of Verdi and Wagner. Her repertoire includes pivotal roles such as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz, Strauss‘ Ariadne, Liù/Turandot, Desdemona/Otello, and Amelia/Un ballo in maschera.

Further, contemporary Finnish opera plays an important part in Koskela’s repertoire which led to her performing in two world premieres at the Ilmajoki Music Festival in Finland – in Ilkka Kuusisto’s Taipaleenjoki in 2009 (-2011) as well as in Uljas Pulkkis’ opera Kekkonen in 2013 – as well as in the world premiere of Aulis Sallinen’s Castle in the Water at the Savonlinna Festival 2017.
 
An additional highlight on the opera stage was her debut as Eva Pogner in Wagner’s Meistersinger at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki under the baton of Michael Güttler, followed by her scenic debut as Elsa in Lohengrin at Stadttheater Pforzheim. Other recent highlights include the opera Pohjalaisia by Leevi Madetoja at the Tampere Opera as well as a concertante performance of Wagner‘s Götterdämmerung in Odense, Denmark in which she sang the part of Gutrune under the baton of Alexander Vedernikov.
 
Koskela’s lied- and concert repertoire contains lieder by Wolf, Strauss, Kuula, Sibelius, and others; including Vier letzte Lieder by Strauss, Sieben frühe Lieder by Berg, the Wesendonck-Lieder by Wagner, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Sibelius’ Kullervo Symphony. In 2010, Koskela sang in the world premiere of Ezio Monti’s Sei Grande Karol with the Filarmonica di Roma at Vatican City. A year prior, she sang Sibelius’ The Tempest with the Tokyo City Symphony in Japan.

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