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 a Herndon Foundation Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera for the 2023-24 season, where she will sing Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and cover Suzuki (Madama Butterfly). She was an Apprentice Artist with the Glimmerglass Festival this past summer, where she covered the Baroness and Vanderdendur in Candide. 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. She recently won Third Place in the 10th Annual Mildred Miller International Voice Competition and was a semifinalist in both the 2022 Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition and the 2021 James Toland Vocal Arts Competition.
On the concert stage, 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. Emily has also sung the alto solos in Beethoven's Symphony No.9, Handel’s Messiah and Utrecht Jubilate Deo, Mozart’s Requiem, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, and Arvo Pärt's Stabat Mater.
Emily was a young artist at Pittsburgh Festival Opera for two summers, where she performed the role of Amastre (Xerxes) and covered Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd). Emily made her European debut in 2012 singing both Cherubino and Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro at the Tuscia Operafestival in Viterbo, Italy.
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). Emily received both her M.M. and her B.M. (magna cum laude) in Voice Performance from Boston University. She is also the proud mom of a rescue dog named Captain, who is a very good boy when allowed to visit the rehearsal room!
A long-term New Englander, Emily was a roster artist with Boston Opera Collaborative and performed roles with the company including Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro), the Marquise de Merteuil (The Dangerous Liaisons), and Aunt (Stefan Weisman's The Scarlet Ibis). She performed the Old Lady in Candide and Elder Constance in Matthew Aucoin's Second Nature with Opera del West. She sang Schaunard in MassOpera's production of La femme Bohème, an all-female version of Puccini's La Bohème. Prior to its cancellation due to the pandemic, Emily was prepared to flex her musical theatre muscles as Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd) with Lowell House Opera.
