Top 10 Female Trance DJs You Should Know in 2026 — Definitive List

Every list of this kind misses someone, and the specific ranking — first to tenth — is mostly arbitrary. The point of the format is to surface ten names that a reader unfamiliar with the current state of trance DJing can use as a starting point. Each of the ten below has a 2026 catalogue or set archive that rewards attention. Listen to one DJ's recent ASOT or Group Therapy guest mix and you will learn more about where trance is right now than any think piece including this one.

Markus Schulz's Coldharbour signing — real name Nikoleta Frajkorová — has been quietly building one of the most consistent tech-trance and uplifting catalogues of the late 2010s and 2020s. Her steady stream of Coldharbour original singles and remixes alongside her Follow Me mix-compilation series establishes her as a peer to the genre's veteran male producers, with a sound that is identifiably hers — driving but melodically generous, peak-time without being one-dimensional.

Alesia Arkusha's Siona Records (founded 2019) and her long-running mix series have made her one of the most internationally booked progressive-house DJs working today. Her open-air sets at Mandarine Park in Buenos Aires and on the road through 2024-2025 are touchstones for the modern long-form progressive aesthetic — closer to Hernan Cattáneo's tradition than to peak-time uplifting, and all the better for it.

HALIENE's vocal-led production work with STANDERWICK, Gareth Emery, and others made her the defining voice of late-2010s emotional uplifting. Her own DJ sets, increasingly visible in the past two years, work the same emotional register as her vocal records — built around the breakdown and the song, not the drop.

Worth noting in this list is the broader axis of female vocalist-producers — Christina Novelli, Susana, HALIENE, and others — whose collaborations have shaped many of the genre's most enduring vocal-led records. Their credits run deeper than feature credits suggest: they are co-writers and creative partners on records by Gareth Emery, STANDERWICK, Aly & Fila, and others, and any list of women influencing trance in 2026 has to acknowledge the collaborative shape of much of the genre's vocal-led work.

5. Ana Criado (Spanish/English heritage, born in the Netherlands) — one of the most respected vocalist-DJs working today, her solo Pure Trance sets are masterclasses in long-form arrangement. 6. Susana (Netherlands) — the genre's most enduring vocalist-collaborator, increasingly visible as a DJ in her own right. 7. Christina Novelli (UK) — co-writer and vocalist on dozens of the era's biggest records. 8. Roxanne Emery (UK) — Gareth's sister, now a serious solo voice across vocal-led trance and pop crossover. 9. Linnea Schössow (Sweden) — the new-generation vocalist-DJ whose 2024-2025 work points to where the next ten years of vocal trance will go. 10. Yoko (Japan) — the most internationally visible Japanese trance DJ of her generation, with an Asia-focused booking calendar that makes her sets a useful window into the regional scene.

The right way to use this list is not to memorise the names but to pick three from it that look interesting based on the description and listen to one full set from each over the next two weeks. Twenty-something hours of listening will give you a working sense of the current female-DJ landscape in trance — much faster than reading more articles. The names matter less than the listening.

The article's closing advice — pick three names, listen to one full set from each over two weeks — is the most directly useful instruction in the whole piece. From the listener side, that protocol works because it matches how weekly A State of Trance listening actually builds taste: not by reading rankings, but by sitting with one selector's sensibility long enough to learn what they reach for. Twenty hours with three of the names on this list will produce a more durable understanding of the current female-DJ landscape than any number of think pieces, including the article above.

What is worth adding from inside listening is that the list reads differently once you have done the work. The order stops mattering. What matters is which three names you actually returned to, and what specific selections by them are still in rotation a month later. The list is a starting point; the listening week is what tells you which names belong on a longer personal ranking and which were one-time entries. The article is correct that the names matter less than the listening — that is exactly the right way to engage a piece like this.