MTD Events
Guest Artist Recital: Dr. Emely Phelps, piano
Date and Time
Friday, October 25, 2024 7:30 PM
Location
Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall
Description
Praised by the Boston Globe for her fleet, energetic, and
bright-toned playing, pianist Emely Phelps enjoys a versatile career
as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. Second prize winner of
the 2023 Ernst Bacon Prize for American Music, Emely has given more
than 50 performances over the past two years, with recent highlights
including an all-American solo recital and educational residency in
Ruth Crawford Seeger's birthplace of East Liverpool, OH, Gershwin's
Rhapsody in Blue with the Ohio University Wind Symphony, performances
of Robert McClure's Celestial Miniatures at the MTNA National
Conference and Ohio Music Teachers Association State Conference, and
duo recitals with violist Jonathan Bagg, trombonist Lucas Borges, and
violinist Christine Harada Li.
Emely made her solo orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the
National Symphony Orchestra, and has since been a featured concerto
soloist with orchestras such as the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony
Orchestra, Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra and Washington Metropolitan
Philharmonic. She has presented solo recitals throughout North America
and Europe with a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach to Carter, and
is a particularly passionate advocate for new music, having given
world premieres of more than a dozen compositions and worked closely
with Jörg Widmann, Shulamit Ran, Lei Liang, Robert McClure, and
Richard Wernick in
performances of their works. She will begin her
first solo album in September through an Artist Residency at Yellow
Barn, featuring a survey of American piano music, including works by
Ruth Crawford Seeger, Elliott Carter, Robert McClure and a new
co-commission from Tyson Gholston Davis.
As a founding member of Trio Cleonice, Emely spent eight years
with the ensemble, performing across the United States, touring Europe
- including a recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam - and winning
second prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in
Harbin, China. The group also served as the Graduate Piano
Trio-inResidence at New England Conservatory for three years, and from
2014-2016 curated a monthly chamber music series, Trio Cleonice and
Friends, in Brookline, Massachusetts, with the aim of making chamber
music an accessible and integral part of the community.
An in-demand collaborator, Emely is on the faculty of the Icicle
Creek Chamber Music Festival and the Anchorage Chamber Music Festival,
performs regularly with Electric Earth Concerts, and has attended
numerous other chamber music festivals, including five summers at
Yellow Barn and three summers at Kneisel Hall. She has appeared as a
guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet, and maintains active
duo partnerships with flutist Hannah Porter Occeña and violist
Jonathan Bagg. Emely is in the midst of recording her third CD with
Hannah, with previous releases including Discovering Her Voice and
Confluence, and can also be heard on the Delos label with violinist
Dawn Wohn on the album Unbounded. All three albums feature duos by
female composers.
Emely currently serves as Associate Professor of Instruction at
Ohio University, where she co-chairs the keyboard division, teaches
applied piano, chamber music, and keyboard repertoire, and also
directs the graduate collaborative piano degree program. Prior to her
appointment at OU, she was the head piano TA at Stony Brook
University, teaching for and managing their undergraduate piano
program. Emely has given masterclasses at numerous universities, and
been a featured presenter at Ohio University's Piano Pedagogy Seminar
and the Ohio Music Teachers Association State Conference.
Born in Frederick, Maryland, Emely began her piano studies with
Carole Kriewaldt and Marjorie Lee before receiving her B.M. and M.M.
from the Juilliard School as a student of Julian Martin. She holds a
Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she
studied with Christina Dahl, and a Graduate Diploma in chamber music
from NEC, where she had the
privilege of being mentored by Vivian
Weilerstein during Trio Cleonice's residency at the institution.
This event also appears on the main events calendar tagged as arts, clas, concert, music, and performance.
Contact
Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance
(616) 331-3484