Making her mark as an "especially impressive" (The New York Times) soprano, Australian/American Nola Richardson is a rapidly rising star increasingly recognized for her performances which combine a voice of "astonishing balance and accuracy,” “crystalline diction,” and “natural-sounding ease” (Washington Post) with "spellbinding acting-singing... substantial powers of melisma, melodic agility, and timbre modulation." (blogcritic.org)

After winning First Prize in all three major American competitions focused on the music of J.S. Bach (Bethlehem Bach, 2016; Audrey Rooney Bach, 2018; Grand Rapids Symphony Linn Maxwell Keller Award, 2019), Nola has been catapulted to the forefront of Baroque ensembles and orchestras around the country. Recent and upcoming performances include Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort at Strathmore Hall, BWV 51: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen with Seattle Symphony, and a performance at the Leipzig Bach Festival and tour of Germany and Austria with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem. She will appear as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel with Helena Symphony, Cleopatra in Hasse's Marc' Antonio e Cleopatra with Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, perform the title role in Theodora with Ars Lyrica Houston, and join the Twelfth Night Ensemble in two national tours of Handel cantatas Apollo e Dafne and Aminta e Fillide, among other performances.

Highly acclaimed in her concert appearances, Nola’s repertoire ranges from medieval to contemporary works – including several world premieres. With "a voice for which Handel might have designed the music" (Parterre Box), she has made debuts in Handel's Messiah with the Pittsburgh, Seattle, Kansas City, Helena, and Colorado Symphonies, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall with Musica Sacra. The Seattle Times described her as “agile and crystalline-voiced…a stand-out” and as Dalila in Handel's Samson at Carnegie Hall with Oratorio Society of New York, she was declared "The vocal star of the first half... who infuses an effervescent soprano with seductive character work" (blogcritic.org).

She has performed Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate with Grand Rapids Symphony and Voices of Music, a Sondheim review with the Boston Pops, Haydn’s Creation with the Akron Symphony and the Master Chorale of South Florida, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Portland Symphony and Musica Angelica and numerous works of Bach with the Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati May Festival, Baltimore Symphony and the American Classical Orchestra among others. Her debut in Bach’s Coffee Cantata with Philharmonia Baroque was noted for her “graceful ebullience” (San Francisco Chronicle) and performances in Handel’s La Resurrezione and a program of French Baroque music with the American Bach Soloists drew praise for her “lusciously polished…exemplary impassioned singing” (San Francisco Classical Voice). 

Nola's operatic appearances such as her debut at the Kennedy Center with Opera Lafayette (Fraarte in Handel’s Radamisto) have drawn praise for her “particularly appealing freshness and directness” (Washington Post). As Oriana in Handel's Amadigi di Gaula with Ars Lyrica Houston, she was acclaimed as “the most convincing actor of the night, her every expression true to character… [her voice] resolute and triumphant, with depth and clarity, powerful yet supple.” (Arts and Culture Texas). She gave a “standout” performance (Opera News) as the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte with the Clarion Music Society and made her debut with the Boston Early Music Festival in the summer of 2023 performing several roles in Desmarest’s Circé and as Oreste Nunzia in Francesca Caccini’s Alcina. Her repertoire includes several Mozart heroines in addition to early operatic works such as Eurydice/Proserpina in Monteverdi's Orfeo and Apolo in a rare performance of the Baroque Zarzuela Apolo e Dafne by Sebastián Durón. 

Nola's recent recording of Bach's St. John Passion with the Cantata Collective and conductor Nic McGegan was praised for her "elegant phrasing, radiant tone, and splendid ease in coloratura" (Early Music America). She can be heard in Mozart's Requiem with the Baltimore Choral Arts, on the Boston Early Music Festival's album of Desmarest's Circé and in digital video releases with Voices of Music, Seraphic Fire, Sonnambula, Musica Angelica, and Colorado Bach Ensemble. Future album releases will include Bach's Magnificat and Easter Oratorio with Cantata Collective and Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with the Clarion Choir. 

An Australian by birth, Nola has spent most of her life in the US. She holds a BM from Illinois Wesleyan University and dual MM degrees in Vocal Performance and Early Music from the Peabody Conservatory. She was a young artist with the Boston Early Music Festival, a vocal fellow at Tanglewood, a Marc and Eva Stern Fellow at Songfest, and a Carmel Bach Festival Virginia Best Adams Fellow in 2019. Nola attended the Institute of Sacred Music Program and in May of 2020 she was the first and only female singer to receive the prestigious DMA degree in Early Music Voice from Yale​.

 HANDEL | Messiah | Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall | Kent Tritle, cond.

"Soprano Nola Richardson’s performance of I Know That My Redeemer Liveth was radiant, angelic, and exquisite while her fluidity and command of extended melismatic passages were breathtaking."

         - Edward A. Kliszus, Openingnight.online.com,   Dec. 23, 2022

HANDEL | Messiah | American Bach Soloists | Jeffrey Thomas, cond.

"It would have been nearly impossible to find a more satisfying solo quartet than the young singers who graced this performance. Soprano Nola Richardson possesses the quintessential angelic quality and sympathetic delivery that delights the ear with every note."

         - Pamela Hicks Gailey,  Classical Sonoma, Dec. 19, 2021 (Read full review)

HANDEL | Messiah | Seattle Symphony

“The soprano aria “If God be for us,” for instance, is not always heard in Christmastime productions, but its inclusion here may have had something to do with the excellence of the soprano soloist, the agile and crystalline-voiced Nola Richardson. With her creative ornamentation, she was a standout among the four soloists.”

         -Melinda Bargreen, The Seattle Times, Dec. 21, 2019

MONTEVERDI | Lamento della ninfa | Seraphic Fire | Patrick Dupre Quigley, cond.

" Soprano Nola Richardson gave it a full-hearted performance, emphasizing the interior pathos of the abandoned nymph. She followed faithfully Monteverdi’s directions to sing freely “in the tempo of her emotions.”

         - Marcio Bezerra, Palm Beach Arts Paper, Nov. 12, 2022 (Read full review)

"The Monteverdi works peaked with Nola Richardson’s riveting performance of Lamento della Ninfa, a tale of a woman’s anguish at being jilted by her lover. This scena is a prima donna tour de force that could have been written for opera a century later. With a pure, sturdy soprano and deep emotional penetration, Richardson conveyed the heartbreak and agony of the tragic heroine."

         - Lawrence Budmen, South Florida Classical Review, Nov. 4, 2022 (Read full review)

J.S. BACH | St. Matthew Passion | Portland Symphony Orchestra

"Richardson and Buchholz offered surrounding arias of compelling drama and beauty including one each with a strong assist from a different PSO violinist. Richardson's emotive delivery was particularly appealing..."

         - Steve Feeney,  Portland Press Herald , April 11, 2022

MOZART/MONTEVERDI | Seraphic Fire

"Nola Richardson’s exquisite singing in Seraphic Fire’s performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and the Master Chorale’s presentation of Haydn’s Creation in 2019 marked her as one of the finest vocalists regularly performing in South Florida. Her flexibility and radiant timbre made “Iste confessor” a highlight of the program….”

         - Lawrence Budmen, South Florida Classical Review, May 24, 2021

J.S. BACH | Coffee Cantata | Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra | Patrick Dupre Quigley, cond.

“Richardson had the best musical material to work with and made the most of it. Her bright, crisply articulated tone, shown to best advantage in a beguiling and satiny conversation with flutist Stephen Schultz, earned best-in-show honors.”

         - Steven Winn, San Francisco Classical Voice,  Feb. 10, 2020

 HAYDN | The Creation | Master Chorale of South Florida

"As the angel Gabriel and later Eve, Nola Richardson was totally delightful, displaying nimble coloratura and a light voice of penetrating beauty….Richardson’s bright timbre and dulcet high notes were thrilling in “The marvelous work beholds”  and she ignited sparks with the perfectly placed trills of “On mighty pens uplifted.”"

         -Lawrence Budman, South Florida Classical Review, May 4, 2019

HANDEL | Radamisto | Opera Lafayette

“Two of Tiridate’s generals, both written as high soprano roles, are passionately in love with Zenobia and Polissema: Rather than have the women, Veronique Filloux and Nola Richardson, costumed as men, the production let them stay women, which felt perfectly normal in this context. Richardson sang with a particularly appealing freshness and directness.”

         -Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, February 6, 2019 (Read full review)

J.S. BACH | Magnificat | American Classical Orchestra | Thomas Crawford, cond.

”C.P.E.’s “Magnificat” is something else, a masterpiece in its own right, which looks as resolutely to the future as his father’s does at times to the past. Mr. Crawford and his forces gave it a good outing, with an especially fine turn by Nola Richardson, a soprano.”

         -James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, December 8, 2017

MOZART | Die Zauberflöte | Clarion Music Society | Steven Fox, cond. 

"In a supporting cast with no weak links, the vocal standouts were the three “firsts”: Nola Richardson (First Lady), Ty Green (First Boy) and James Kennerley (First Armed Man)."

         -David Shengold, Opera News, June 2017

BEETHOVEN | Missa Solemnis | Chorus Pro Musica

"The soloists were consistently excellent. Nola Richardson sang with a bright soprano that complemented Kate Maroney’s burnished mezzo-soprano....Together, the singers delivered a velvety blend. The “Crucifixus” sounded with dark vitality while the “passus et sepultus est,” which tells of Christ’s death and burial, was poignant."

         -Aaron Keebaugh, Boston Classical Review, November 5th, 2016

J.S. BACH | Lutheran Masses | Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 | Masaaki Suzuki, cond.

"Nola Richardson was especially impressive in the soprano parts, singing with beautiful tone..."

         -James R. Oestreich, The New York Times,  October 20th, 2015

CHARPENTIER/COUPERIN | Cantique Spirituel: Music for Lent | Les Délices

"Richardson possesses an unusually beautiful voice -- sparkling and clear, full-bodied throughout its range, with a hint of darkness that adds an extra note of complexity. Her control is beyond reproach, and her operatic experience allowed her to bring a certain sense of drama to Thomas Aquinas' hymn "Pange lingua" upon which Charpentier's suite is based. That same dramatic quality enhanced the performances of Couperin's and Charpentier's "Lamentations of Jeremiah.... Richardson navigated the elaborate phrases beautifully, with clear and precise diction throughout (she sang the Latin texts with a French pronunciation that would have been heard at the time)." 

         -Mark Satola, Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 10th, 2015

All-Baroque with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

"Richardson hit her stride with the Scarlatti — the lament of an anguished soul. Her voice opened up with confidence and dramatic conviction, full of redolent passion."

         -Cecelia H. Porter, Washington Post,  July 11th, 2014

A Baroque Holiday Festival with the Bach Sinfonia

"What made this evening special was the performance of soprano Nola Richardson, who blew through the runs of the aria “Rejoice Greatly” from Handel’s “Messiah” at Abraham’s fast pace with astonishing balance and accuracy, lavishing crystalline diction on everything she touched and managing, throughout, to shape phrases with natural-sounding ease.”

         -Joan Reinthaler, Washington Post, Dec. 15th, 2013