Iida Antola is a versatile musician/artist, mostly working as an opera singer. She grew up in Finland but she considers herself a cosmopolitan – she was born in Taipei where she spent her early childhood, she studied and lived in Berlin and in France. At the moment she is based in Amsterdam. She is fluent Finnish, English, German and French.
She works primarily as soloist but she is also a trained pianist, choir conductor and a published composer. In spring 2022 she made her international debut as Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss) at Opéra de Limoges and sang title roles of Suor Angelica (Puccini) in Berlin Alte Münze and Adina (Rossini) in Royal Opera Festival in Krakow (2022).
Her other recent important roles include the role of Bride in the Finnish premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s latest opera Innocence, a role which she covered at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2021; Micaëla (Bizet: Carmen) at Tampere Opera and Donna Elvira (Mozart: Don Giovanni) at Wien Palais Eschenbach (2020). She made her professional debut at the Finnish National Opera as Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute in 2017 and has since sung several principal roles there at the very beginning of her career, such as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera (2018 & 2021), Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (2020) and Crobyle in Massenet’s Opera Thaïs (2019).

She has had success in various voice competitions. In summer 2022 she was awarded the Bel Canto Prize, Audience Prize and the Inge Borkh scholarship at the Rossini in Wildbad Festival. In 2021 she was a finalist in the prestigious ARD competition in Munich, Germany. In 2023 was awarded 1st prize at the Lappeenranta National Voice competition. Winning 1st prize in the Kangasniemi Competition in Finland back in 2017 resulted in her first working opportunities in Finland.
Besides opera she is also a passionate Lieder singer. This season (2023-2024) she is one of the laureates of Lied Academy d’Orsay-Royaumont with pianist Anni Laukkanen. Her debut CD “The Truth about Love” with pianist Kirill Kozlovski was published by Alba Records in 2023. She has given recitals in MozartFest Würzburg, Crescendo Festival Berlin, Ploiesti Philharmonic and Bucharest Atheneum and in Germany, France, the Netherlands and her native Finland. She won shared 2nd prize (1st prize wasn’t awarded) at the International Paula Salomon Lindberg Competition in Berlin in 2017 with pianist Daria Tudor and in 2018 she was a finalist in both the International Hugo Wolf Lied Competition in Stuttgart and the International Schubert Lied Duo Competition in Dortmund with pianist Anni Laukkanen.
She also has a vast oratorio and concert repertoire: She performed for example The Messiah (Handel), Requiem (Mozart), Requiem (Fauré), The Seasons (Haydn), Nelson-Messe (Haydn), Salve Regina (Haydn) and Paukenmesse (Haydn).
She is an experienced performer of contemporary music, she has perfect pitch and recently sang and conducted Pierrot Lunaire at the “Kaivos Festival” in Finland. She also premiered music in the “Klang” Festival in Helsinki and she can be heard as soloist on several recordings, including Veli-Matti Puumala’s opera Anna-Liisa (Ondine 2015), the Bermaniana male choir recording (Alba 2016), as well as the Helsinki Chamber Choir’s Bergman recording (BIS 2017). Publisher Sulasol has published her compositions.
Before her voice studies at Universität der Künste Berlin, she graduated as choir conductor and pianist from the Sibelius Academy. She has studied choir conducting in Finland under Timo Nuoranne and Prof. Matti Hyökki and in France under Nicole Corti (CNSMD Lyon). Between 2013-2015 she worked as a chorus master for many opera productions at the Sibelius Academy and she was also the artistic director of HOL, a high-level student choir in Helsinki. In 2015 HOL was awarded two golden stars at International Tampere Vocal Music Festival choir review and she was also awarded the prize for the best young conductor. Her dream is to combine conducting and singing.
Her studies and artistic projects have been supported by grants from the Olga & Vilho Linnamo foundation, the Selim Eskelin foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Wihuri Foundation.