She is quite well known but not famous like a Pavarotti or a Bartoli. She can still easily walk around incognito, but true voice lovers know better, and her fans follow her performances all over the world.


Her career began in 1987 when she won second prize in Cardiff, but it was only about four years ago that her name was really beginning to be recognized. Ignored by the big record companies, she had to make do with the success of her performances and word of mouth.

I first heard her as Donna Elvira in Paris, with Bo Skovhus as don Giovanni. It was Skovhus for whom I had undertaken the journey, and it was Soile Isokoski who made my heart beat faster. Her Elvira was heartbreaking and pitiful, yes, she made me really understand all those tears for the seducer.

She received a Grammy Award for her performance of Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, quite rightly,

and her recording of Finnish songs (all on Ondine) belongs in every song lover’s home.

It is also precisely Bo Skovhus, with whom Isokoski recorded Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch, with at the piano Marita Viitasalo, her regular accompanist.

Wolf’s miniatures have never had better protagonists, as both voices have a lot in common: perfect diction, musicality, the great art of ‘acting’ with your voice alone, and a somewhat sweet timbre.

Hugo Wolf
Italienisches Liederbuch
Soile Isokoski, Bo Skovhus, Marita Viitasalo
Ondine ODE 998-2 (2cd)