Anika-France Forget

French-Canadian mezzo-soprano and composer Anika-France Forget has been noted for her exemplary stage presence, and for being playful and vocally impressive. In 2019, she made her Toronto debut as Gwendolen Fairfax in SOLT’s operetta Earnest, The Importance of Being (Davies & Benson). Prior to becoming a Sidgwick Scholar with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto in 2020, she tackled—with the help of VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert’s General Director Guillermo Silva-Marin and Chorus Director Robert Cooper—the precise rhythms of Ravel, playing the roles of Concepción in L’heure espagnole, and the White Cat and the Squirrel in L’enfant et les sortilèges. 

Anika-France has participated in numerous masterclasses and private coachings, including those with Lise Davidsen, Joyce DiDonato, Sarah Connolly, Kate Royal, Julia Bullock, Iain Burnside, Richard Hetherington, Ann Murray, and Graham Johnson. In May 2022, she was selected, alongside five other singers, to participate in the week-long Internationaal Lied Festival Zeist, in the Netherlands, where she was given the opportunity to learn from the best in the industry—world-established artists like soprano Elly Ameling, bass-baritone Robert Holl, baritone Roderick Williams, and pianist and Grammy Awards nominee Hans Eijsackers.

Thanks to a mentoring partnership between the Diaspora Dialogues and the Orpheus Choir of Toronto, Anika-France’s choral piece “Prayer for Return” was commissioned and got its world premiere at the 2019 Raising Her Voice and 2019 Toronto’s Nuit Blanche. Her work received many praises, especially for its heartrending passages: “Passion is at the core of Forget’s score, lush harmony, emotional questioning and a deeply felt synergy with Eskandani’s poem” (Robert Cooper, conductor). In 2022, she was commissioned by Slow Rise Music and her work premiered during the Hanging by a Thread inaugural concert at the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto. Most recently, Anika-France was invited to participate in the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Generation Composer’s Program. During this mentorship project, she wrote a new art song for mezzo soprano, cello, and piano titled I Will Whisper Your Name - A Sweet Boy’s Lullaby. Her song will be included on a SPO commercial album, using the Toronto label, Akashic Classics and distributed by Universal in November 2024. In the fall 2024, she will be working with the Myriad Ensemble and their artistic director, Elise Naccarato, as their 2024/25 Emerging Composer. 

Over the years, she has received many noteworthy accolades: She was the recipient of the University of Toronto’s 2017–2021 Robert William Bygrave Entrance Scholarship and the laureate of the Prix d’excellence artistique provincial du Fonds ARTES 2017. She is a 2017 RCM Gold Medalist. Most recently, she was awarded the 2021 Delius Society Prize during the London Song Festival in December of that year. She was also invited to perform as a finalist at the prestigious Susan Longfield Competition and the Somerset Song Prize in 2022. Being a proud recipient of a Leverhulme Arts Scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, U.K., where she obtained a Master of Music in Vocal Studies, she studied classical singing with soprano Marilyn Rees and collaborative pianist Bretton Brown.