Pumeza Matshikiza

Pumeza Matshikiza (born 27 February 1979 in Lady Frere, South Africa) is a South-African operatic soprano. A graduate of the Royal College of Music and a member of the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists Programme from 2007 to 2009, she made her début as a flower maiden in Parsifal and has gone on to sing leading soprano roles with Stuttgart Opera. Matshikiza has released two solo albums on the Decca Classics label.

Pumeza studied at the University of Cape Town College of Music, graduated cum laude under Professor Virginia Davids, then at the Royal College of Music, London, with a full three-year scholarship and in the Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she made her début as a flower maiden in Parsifal. Winner of the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition in Dublin in 2010, Pumeza later joined the Stuttgart Opera, where she has been part of the full-time ensemble since 2011, performing Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Mimì in La bohème, Micaëla in Carmen.

Signing with the London-based label Decca in 2013, she recorded her debut album, Pumeza - Voice of Hope, at Abbey Road Studios.

She sang one of the Innocents in the 2008 première of Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur, and her first major role was that of Mimì at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010 in a production by Opera Bohemia. There she was described as "the real star of the show ... who plays the role of Mimi ... with a rich, lustrous voice. She also sang at the wedding of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and Charlene Wittstock, accompanied by French guitarist Eric Sempe and percussionist Patrick Mendez. She was a South Bank Sky Arts Breakthrough Award in 2011. Pumeza performed a rendition of "Freedom Come-All-Ye" at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which was viewed by one billion people worldwide. The song refers to Nyanga, one of the oldest black townships in Cape Town, which is also one of the places where Pumeza grew up as a child. Speaking about the song afterwards, she said: "The song is not one I was even aware of until I was given it to rehearse but it is so beautiful. I love what the song stands for – freedom for everyone regardless of race or social standing or nationality."