The Award was for her 2020 portrayal of Dorabella in the Mozart opera, Così fan tutte.
Siphokazi is currently in her first year of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. The Program was created to identify and develop extraordinarily talented young artists in the realm of opera. She was previously a member of the young artist programme at Cape Town Opera, where she recently sang Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and the Third Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
In 2020, she won the Rising Star Encouragement Award in the Glyndebourne Opera Cup and Best Female Performance in an Opera in the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards in South Africa for her 2019 portrayal of Romeo.
She was also a winner of the 2018 Schock Foundation Prize for Singing. After winning the Ana María Martínez Encouragement Award and the Audience Choice Award at the Houston Grand Opera Annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers in 2017, she joined the Houston Grand Opera Young Artist Vocal Academy.
On the concert stage, she has performed as a soloist in Haydn’s Nicolai Mass and Mozart’s Coronation Mass at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, and Verdi’s Requiem with the Dar Choral Society in Tanzania.
Siphokazi has been singing for as long as she can remember, having always held the knowledge that it was what she wanted to do. She remembers hearing her first aria and being amazed at what the human voice could achieve. With the support of her family and a high school teacher, she was able to pursue singing as her career. She completed her Diploma in Music at Nelson Mandela University under voice lecturer, Lionel van Zyl and proceeded to complete her Diploma in Opera Performance under the tutelage of Patrick Tikolo at the University of Cape Town.