Shirlee Emmons, born in Wisconsin, took her undergraduate degree at Lawrence University. She then pursued graduate study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where she was a student of the legendary soprano Elizabeth Schumann. Aided by a Fulbright Scholarship, she studied at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milano, Italy, under the tutelage of Maestro Mario Cordone, whose training was done under his mentor, the great Arturo Toscanini. Highlights of Emmons¹ singing career include solo work with the Robert Shaw Chorale, recordings for RCA and Concert Hall, opera performances with the NBC Opera Company and the Santa Fe Opera, concert tours for CAMI, first-prize winner of the Marian Anderson Competition, oratorio appearances as soloist with the major New York choral societies, winning an OBIE (the off-Broadway Oscar award) for her performance in the leading role of Virgil Thomson¹s The Mother of Us All, and singing first performances of works by the composers Jack Beeson, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Francis Poulenc.
As a voice teacher, Ms. Emmons began her teaching career at Barnard College/Columbia University, moving from there to Princeton University where she taught for seventeen years, followed by seven years at Boston University and three years at Rutgers University. She has presented master classes in almost every state of the union, at national conventions for the MTNA and NATS, and at conferences for The College Music Society and the National Society of Arts and Letters. Emmons is the immediate past Chair of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing. Shirlee Emmons served as contributing editor for The NATS Journal for three years, specializing in articles about the lives of former great singers. She has written three books: The Art of the Song Recital (Schirmer Books, 1979), Tristanissimo: the authorized biography of heroic tenor Lauritz Melchior (Schirmer Books, 1990), and the newest, a book about performance psychology, written with co-author Alma Thomas, an eminent British performance specialist, Power Performance for Singers: Transcending the Barriers (Oxford University Press, 1998), now also published in Korean translation by Project 409. Ms. Emmons now teaches privately in New York, where her students include singers on the rosters of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera. |
