Emely Phelps

Pianist Emely Phelps embraces authenticity and creativity through her versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Praised by the Boston Globe for her “fleet, energetic, and bright-toned” playing, Emely has given nearly 50 performances over the past two years, with recent highlights including solo recitals at Bucknell University and the University of Georgia, chamber music performances with A Far Cry and the Cassatt Quartet, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Ohio University Wind Symphony, and duo recitals with violinist Christine Harada Li, flutist Jeiran Hasan, and trombonist Lucas Borges.

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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 premiered more than a dozen compositions and worked closely with Jörg Widmann, Shulamit Ran, Lei Liang, and Richard Wernick in performances of their works. She received the Doug Davis Discretionary Award for her performance of Robert McClure’s Celestial Miniatures and was awarded second place in the 2023 Ernst Bacon Prize for American Music. Her first solo album, American Counterpoint, will be released on Navona records in November.

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An in-demand collaborator, Emely has been on the faculty of the T-Town Chamber Music Festival, Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival, Anchorage Chamber Music Festival and Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, 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 violist Jonathan Bagg and flutist Hannah Porter Occeña. Emely recently recorded her third CD with Hannah, with previous releases including Discovering Her Voice and Confluence, and also appears on the Delos label with violinist Dawn Wohn (Unbounded, 2023)and on New Focus Recordings with Jonathan Bagg (Viola Revival, 2026), all highlighting duos by underrepresented composers.

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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-in-Residence 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.

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Emely is delighted to join the University of Georgia as Assistant Professor of Piano this fall, having served there for the past year in a limited-term capacity. Prior to her appointment at UGA, she was an Associate Professor of Instruction at Ohio University, where she co-chaired the keyboard division, taught applied piano, chamber music, and keyboard repertoire, and directed the graduate collaborative piano degree program. Emely has given master classes at numerous universities, is a frequent adjudicator for regional competitions, and been a featured presenter at the Ohio Music Teachers Association State Conference, Washington Music Teachers Association District III Conference, and Ohio University’s Piano Pedagogy Seminar.