About me
Louise McClelland Jacobsen is a Danish-New Zealand soprano based in Dresden. From the 2026/27 season, she is a member of the ensemble at Semperoper Dresden, while also maintaining an active freelance career across opera, concert and chamber repertoire.
She completed the Young Artist Programme at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen in 2025. She made her operatic debut there in 2023 as the Fifth Maid in Strauss’ Elektra while still a student at the Royal Danish Opera Academy, where she studied with Professor Helene Gjerris.
At the Royal Danish Theatre, her roles included Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Aase (Drot og Marsk), the High Priestess (Aida), and Una Amante, Suor Genovieffa and Lauretta in Puccini’s Il Trittico. In 2025 she appeared as Gerda in Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen and made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae, returning subsequently as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro.
Alongside her operatic work, Louise is an active concert singer and has appeared as soloist with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish National Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen and other leading Scandinavian ensembles. Chamber music also forms an important part of her artistic life, notably through her work with Trio Doré.
Committed to contemporary and Scandinavian repertoire, Louise frequently collaborates with living composers and has premiered newly written works on both the concert and operatic stage. She created the title role in the world premiere of Bent Sørensen’s Asle og Alida and has recorded extensively with Danish composers. Her albums of songs by Rued Langgaard and Tekla Griebel Wandall were both selected as Album of the Week by DR P2.
Louise is the recipient of numerous distinctions, including the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Talent Award, the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize, the Aalborg Opera Prize and the Gladsaxe Music Prize. In 2024 she was named Talent of the Year by DR P2.
Listen to B. Sørensen’s ‘Asle og Alida’, live broadcasted on DR P2 24/5 2025:
Click here to listen to my concert with Trio Doré, where music and interview are mixed, announcing me as ‘Talent of the Year’ on DR P2
About me
Louise McClelland is a Danish/New Zealand soprano (b. 1997) and currently a member of the Young Artist Ensemble at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.
In the summer 2023 she got her master’s degree from The Opera Academy at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen with professor Helene Gjerris with top marks.
Louise had her musical upbringing in The Danish National Broadcasting Choirs from the age of 6.
In 2015 she was enrolled at MGK, a preparatory study for young music talents, with lector Hanna Hjort. She began her bachelor’s degree in 2017 at The Royal Danish Academy of Music with lector Hanna Hjort, and was admitted as an Erasmus exchange student at HFMT Hamburg with professor Yvi Jänicke in 2019.
Louise made her stage debut at the Royal Danish Opera as 5. Magd in Strauss’ Elektra in March 2023. In the 2023/2024 season she will sing the role of High Priestess in Verdi’s Aida and the role of Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at The Royal Danish Opera as a member of the Young Artist Ensemble. Louise’s artistic work already embraces an enormous range. She has big success in oratorios, operas and lieder – including the latest modern vocal repertoire.
She has engaged in masterclasses and received lessons by artists such as: Anne Sofie von Otter, Vivica Genaux, Carlos Mena, Audrey Saint-Gil, Bo Skovhus and coach Helmut Deutsch.
Louise debuted as a soloist with The Danish National Symphony Orchestra in 2018, and has later worked with orchestras such as Jönköpings Sinfonietta and Concerto Copenhagen and ensemble Theatre of Voices.
She won the first Langgaard Competition with pianist Kristian Riisager in 2021. She has also won first prize at The Danish National Youth Singing Competition in 2015 and 2019.
Press Quotes
“A series of stratospheric pianissimi that took one’s breath away.”
– Bachtrack on Asle og Alida
“Chapeau to her overall performance … a refined and demanding form of spatial sound theatre of the highest calibre.”
-Oper! on The Snow Queen (9 December 2025)
“With her sparkling soprano and stage presence, Louise belongs among the finest musical contexts both in Denmark and internationally.”
-DR P2 Talent of the Year Jury
Grants received by
