Nikan Ingabire Kanate

Soprano Nikan Ingabire Kanate, from Ottawa, Ontario, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2024, studying in the opera program with Julia Faulkner as the Edwin B. Garrigues Fellow. The Ivorian-Rwandese soprano recently completed her Bachelor of Music degree in performance at the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Nathalie Paulin. Over the years, she has won several prizes, including best female soloist at the third Lorenzo De’Medici International Choral Festival in Florence, Italy, in 2019. She has also gained extensive ensemble experience, touring with the National Youth Choir of Canada in 2022 and 2024. In June 2024, she appeared as soprano soloist in Carlos Alberto Pinto Fonseca’s Missa Afro Brasileira with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale at Koerner Hall. At the University of Toronto, she portrayed a bridesmaid in the 2023 production of Nino Rota’s Il cappello di paglia di Firenze, and in July 2023 she headlined a concert with the string orchestra of the Festival L’Art de la Musique in Gatineau under the direction of Cendrine and Valérie Despax. Most recently, in fall 2024, she sang the roles of Ottavia and Fortune in Curtis Opera Theatre’s East Coast premiere of The Comet / Poppea by George Lewis and Claudio Monteverdi.