In 2002 Soprano Göknur Shanal completed a four-month tenure at the New York Metropolitan Opera as an adjunct member of the Young Artist Program. She also holds a Graduate Diploma of Opera at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and a Post Graduate Certificate at the Royal College of Music, London.  

Göknur is the 2001 winner of Australia’s Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Award, McDonald’s Operatic Aria, winner of the 1999 Queen's Trust Scholarship for Young Australians and Symphony Australia's Young Performers Awards Vocal Category. In 1998, she won the Australian Singing Competition, Marianne Mathy Scholarship. In Europe, Göknur  won the third prize in the 2000 International Mozart Competition held in UK and the Lorreley Jury Award at the 2001 Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition held in Germany. 

Göknur has had Masterclasses with Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, Dame Sarah Walker, Sir Thomas Allen, Richard Miller and Roger Vignoles. 

Göknur Shanal has appeared in Gala Concerts with Izmir State Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Chorus for the 2003 Anzac Day Celebrations at Gallipoli, Turkey.  She has also appeared as a soloist with the Sydney Sinfonia for the Maazel/Vilar International Conductors Competition as well as the Sydney Symphony’s Adult Themes Concert Series. In October 2003 Göknur performed in a concert in Germany organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation. 

Other engagements include recitals with the Sydney Symphony soloists at the National Art Gallery for the Argentinian Republic Day Celebrations, Sydney Festival also with the Sydney Symphony soloists, and with the Baritone, Gregory Yurisich in Tokyo, Japan. She has also performed at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, UK.  

Göknur Shanal has recorded with 2MBS FM and appeared in a Sunday Afternoon Live recital for ABC Classic FM. She has performed with the Melbourne, Adelaide, and West Australian Symphony orchestras, Sydney Sinfonia and the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra.