BIOGRAPHY

Soprano Emily Sinclair, DMA, is an active performer and pedagogue.  Her voice has been hailed as “sweet and strong” and “alluring” by the New York Times. She has performed with opera companies across the United States, including Central City Opera, Opera Colorado, Kentucky Opera and DuPage Opera.  Emily recently made her West Bay Opera debut in the roles of Suor Genovieffa and Nella in Puccini’s Il Trittico.  At the Caramoor International Festival, she sang Roggiero in Rossini’s Tancredi opposite Ewa Podles, and covered Sumi Jo as Elvira in I Puritani.  

In concert, Emily has performed with the San Francisco Choral Society, the Littleton Symphony, and at Weill Recital Hall in New York, among others. She recently made her Cantare Chorale debut as the soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem. She is a regular member of the Grant Park Music Festival chorus, and can be heard on their recordings “The Pulitzer Project” and “Songs of Smaller Creatures”. Emily  was a Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and has been awarded prizes by the Gerda Lissner Foundation and Washington International Competition.  She was in the young artist programs at Tanglewood, Central City Opera and Utah Festival Opera, and an Adams Fellow at the Carmel Bach Festival.  

Emily received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy, and holds additional degrees from Northwestern University, Manhattan School of Music and Yale University. Emily was honored to be chosen as a 2014 NATS Intern, where she worked with Mary Saunders Barton on musical theatre techniques. She has presented her work at the National Opera Association conference and at the Cal-Western Regional NATS conference.

Emily is currently the head of the voice area at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches individual lessons and vocal repertoire. Her teaching and research focus on under-represented composers, and she has taught courses on vocal music by Black composers and by women composers at UCSC. Her students have placed in the NATS Student Auditions, and have been accepted into prestigious undergraduate and graduate programs such as Eastman, USC, Manhattan School of Music, and the Bard Vocal Arts Program.

Emily’s conducting experience began at the University of Colorado, where she served as Assistant Conductor/Chorus Master on several productions, including Ned Rorem's "Our Town," which won third prize in the NOA competition. Emily conducted a reduced version of Hansel and Gretel at UCSC in 2016, and conducted the recording of “Sacco/Vanzetti” (Polansky/Seeger) recently released on New World Records. Emily is the current conductor of Santa Cruz’s Fiat Musica and the Temple Beth-El choir in Aptos, CA.

Emily has maintained a strong connection with NATS. She currently serves as the Membership Outreach Coordinator for the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of NATS, and as the Auditions Coordinator for the Cal-Western Region.  Emily has a private studio in Santa Cruz, and gives frequent masterclasses and choral clinics in the Bay Area.

Photo credit: Popio Stumpf Photography