At the age of fourteen, Fatma Said began a musical journey that would take her from her hometown of Cairo to the opera studio at La Scala in Milan, the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and ultimately to the world's most prestigious concert and opera stages. As a Warner Exclusive artist, she released her critically acclaimed debut album in 2020 El Nourfor which she won the Gramophone Classical Music Award for "Best Song Album", the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award and the Opus Klassik, among others.
Fatma received her first singing lessons in Cairo from soprano Neveen Allouba and later studied opera singing at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Professor Renate Faltin. Said then received a scholarship to the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where she was the first Egyptian to perform on the world-famous stage. During her time at the Academy, she sang - among numerous other roles - the title role of Pamina in the critically acclaimed new Peter Stein production of Mozart's The Magic Fluteabout which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "The flawlessly radiant Fatma Said as Pamina is a discovery."
In the 2022/23 season, Fatma Said will present a series of colorful programs as Artist in Residence at Konzerthaus Berlin, including a concert for the release of her second album Kaleidoscope in September 2022, a recital with Sabine Meyer and Malcolm Martineau as well as concerts with Giovanni Antonini, Iván Fischer and Alondra de la Parra. As a passionate lieder singer, Fatma returns to the Schubertiade in Hohenems and the Wigmore Hall in London. She also makes her recital debuts at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Celebrity Series in Boston. She will also give concerts with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Concerto de' Cavalieri, the Bayer Philharmonic Orchestra and a gala at the venerable Abdeen Palace in Cairo. Fatma will also return to the Elbphilharmonie for Christmas concerts together with Daniel Hope.
Recent engagements include her debut at the Royal Albert Hall with Mozart's Requiem at the BBC Proms with Nathalie Stutzmann, Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Kabuki Yamada, Ravel's Shéhérazade with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Cristian Măcelaru in the Berlin Philharmonie and with the Cleveland Orchestra with Stéphane Denève. Further highlights were Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and Gabor Takács-Nagy, recitals at Snape Maltings, the Radeberg Concerts in Cologne, De Singel in Antwerp, Edinburgh International Festival, Wigmore Hall, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Schubertiade, Morellino Festival and a gala concert with Rolando Villazón at the Zorlu Center in Istanbul as well as the televised gala for his 50th birthday. In recent years, she has appeared in numerous concerts, recitals and festivals in many renowned concert halls and opera houses worldwide, including the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Hamburg State Opera, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, the Royal Opera House in Muscat, the Wexford Opera in Ireland, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Cologne Philharmonie, the concert halls in Berlin and Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Pembroke Music Festival, the Schubertiade in Valdegovia, the Lockenhaus Festival, the Schumann and Beethoven Festivals in Bonn, the Mozart Week in Salzburg and the Bad Kissingen Music Festival.
On the opera stage, she has played the roles of Pamina (The Magic Flute), Nannetta (Falstaff), Clorinda (La cenerentola), La Pastourelle (L'enfant et les sortilèges), Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia), 1st Ecologist (CO2), Feanichton (Bataclan) and L'Amour (Orphée et Eurydice) at the Teatro alla Scala. She sang the role of Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) in a concert performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, as well as the leading role of Tharsis in a new production of T.H.A.M.O.S. conducted by Alondra de la Parra and directed by La Fura dels Baus during the Mozart Week 2019.
Fatma Said is passionate about supporting charitable causes: In September 2021, she performed in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris at Global Citizen Live - a 24-hour live concert broadcast worldwide, where artists around the globe called on politicians to make pledges to protect the environment, end extreme poverty and end the COVID-19 pandemic through equitable vaccine distribution. She presented Egypt at the United Nations Human Rights Day in 2014, 2017 and 2018 in Geneva and in front of the Luxor Temple in Egypt. In 2016, the Egyptian National Council for Women awarded her an honorary prize for her outstanding international artistic achievements. She was also the first Egyptian opera singer to ever receive the Creativity Award, one of Egypt's highest honors, from the state.
Fatma continues to work with Professor Renate Faltin and has also studied with eminent professors and coaches such as Julia Varady, Claar Ter Horst, Anita Keller, Wolfram Rieger and Tom Krause.
Fatma has won many prestigious singing competitions, including the 8th Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition (Dublin, 2016), the 7th Leyla Gencer International Opera Competition (Istanbul, 2012), second prize at the 16th International Robert Schumann Competition (Zwickau, 2012) and the Grand Prix at the first Giulio Perotti Singing Competition (Germany, 2011). Fatma is also an ambassador for Opera for Peace and is sponsored by the stART academy of Bayer Kultur.
