B i o g r a p h y
Praised for her "velvety mezzo-soprano voice" (Pittsburgh in the Round), New Hampshire-born mezzo-soprano Emily Harmon will be joining the company of the Glimmerglass Festival as a Young Artist for the 2023 summer season. She recently won Third Place in the 10th Annual Mildred Miller International Voice Competition and was named as a Semifinalist in the 2022 Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition and the 2021 James Toland Vocal Arts Competition. She made her post-pandemic return to the stage as Susan Veeder in the world premiere of Whaling Women by Jodi Goble, an original production commissioned by Seaglass Theater Company. Since the onset of Covid-19, Emily has performed virtually with Seaglass Theater Company, MassOpera, Boston Opera On Tap, and the Pioneer Valley Symphony. Prior to its cancellation due to the pandemic, Emily was prepared to flex her musical theatre muscles as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Lowell House Opera.
In 2019, Emily made her company debut with Central City Opera as a Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Apprentice Artist, with whom she covered and performed the role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. Emily has been a roster artist with Boston Opera Collaborative since 2018 and has performed roles with the company including Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro, the Marquise de Merteuil in The Dangerous Liaisons, Aunt in Stefan Weisman's The Scarlet Ibis, and Cindy in Eve Kendrick's Misfortune as part of the company's annual Opera Bites event. Emily recently made her debuts with the Worcester Youth Orchestra and the Cambridge Community Chorus by singing the alto solos in Beethoven's Symphony No.9 and Mozart's Requiem, respectively.
For the 2017-18 season, Emily performed the Old Lady in Candide and Elder Constance in Matthew Aucoin's Second Nature with Opera del West, and she sand Madame Kirsten in Dan Shore's The Beautiful Bridegroom with MassOpera. In March 2017 Emily made her Boston Symphony Hall solo debut as the alto soloist in an excerpt of Purcell's Come, Ye Sons of Art, Z.323 with the Handel+Haydn Society's Collaborative Youth Concerts. In 2017 Emily performed the role of Amastre in Handel's Xerxes and covered Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with Pittsburgh Festival Opera. She had previously performed with the company in their 2016 season as Mercédès in Carmen and Lanie Landowska in Honeymoon Suite. Earlier in 2017 Emily appeared as Schaunard in MassOpera's production of La femme Bohème, an all-female version of Puccini's La Bohème.
A graduate of Boston University’s voice programs, Emily performed the roles of Dido (Dido and Aeneas), Dorothée (Cendrillon), Ruth (Dark Sisters), Mother Jeanne (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Estelle Ogelthorpe (Later the Same Evening), Vocal Quintet (Angels in America), Chorus 2 (Fables), and covered Annio (La clemenza di Tito). She has also appeared with companies in the Greater Boston Area including Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, MassOpera, Opera del West, Lowell House Opera, and the Masterworks Chorale. Emily made her European debut in 2012 singing both Cherubino and Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro at the Tuscia Operafestival in Viterbo, Italy. On the concert stage Emily has sung the alto solos in Handel’s Messiah and Utrecht Jubilate Deo, Mozart’s Requiem, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, and Arvo Pärt's Stabat Mater.
Emily made her professional Jordan Hall debut in January 2016 singing the world premiere of Hyacinth Curl, a work written by Kati Agócs for two singers with hand percussion. She frequently appeared as a featured soloist with Time’s Arrow New Music Ensemble at Boston University, directed by professor and composer Rodney Lister. With the ensemble she performed modern and contemporary works by composers including John Cage, Elliot Carter, Morton Feldman, and Eve Beglarian, and worked with composers in residency at BU including Philip Grange, Joan Tower, and Dartmouth professor Larry Polansky. In December 2013 Emily appeared with the ensemble to perform Jonathan Harvey’s Chu, an Eastern-influenced work sung entirely in Tibetan.
Emily was the alto soloist of the Handel + Haydn Society Educational Outreach Vocal Quartet until its dissolution in 2018. She is currently on the roster of Boston Opera on Tap and is the Alto Section Leader at First Congregational Church in Milton, MA. Harmon received both her M.M. and her B.M. (magna cum laude) in Voice Performance from the Boston University College of Fine Arts, and has spent summers studying at the Taos Opera Institute, International Lyric Academy in Rome and Viterbo, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music Salzburg Program.
Emily currently resides in New Hampshire with her rescue dog, Captain, who is a very good boy when allowed to visit the rehearsal room!
