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The American pianist and music teacher, Emely Phelps, studied with Carole Kriewaldt and Marjorie Lee before receiving her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School as a student of Julian Martin. She served there as a staff accompanist from 2007 to 2012. While at Juilliard, she was awarded the John Erskine Prize for scholastic and artistic achievement. She also studied with Vivian Weilerstein during Trio Cleonice’s tenure at New England Conservatory, receiving a Graduate Diploma in chamber music in 2013. She completed her doctoral studies in Piano Ferformance at Stony Brook University with Christina Dahl (2016-2019).
Emely Phelps enjoys a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Praised by the Boston Globe for her “fleet, energetic, and bright-toned” playing, she made her solo orchestral debut with the National Symphony Orchestra as the grand prize-winner of their Young Soloists Competition, and has since been a featured soloist with the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic, Little River Symphony, McLean Symphony, and the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra. She has presented solo recitals throughout North America and Europe, with annual appearances in New York and Boston beginning in 2016, and additional highlights including recitals at Slot Schagen and Muiderslot in the Netherlands, Strathmore Hall’s Music in the Mansion Series, Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff Chamber Music Residency, and Banff Piano Master Class), the Alden Theater, Meredith College, and Glen Eyrie.
From 2008 to 2016, Emely Phelps was a founding member of and the pianist of Trio Cleonice, with whom she performed in more than 15 states, toured Europe - including a recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam - and won second prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in Harbin, China. The trio has also performed at Jordan Hall, and The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. The group also served as the Graduate Piano Trio-in-Residence at New England Conservatory from 2011-2014, actively highlighted piano trios of the 20th and 21st centuries - including a trio written for the group by Richard Wernick, and for 2 ½ years curated a monthly chamber music series, Trio Cleonice and Friends, in Brookline, Massachusetts. The group's 2015-2016 concert season included performances in Maine, New York, Florida, and California, as well as their Canadian debut on Vancouver’s Music on Main series.
Besides her work with Trio Cleonice, Emely Phelps has also appeared as a guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet and has attended numerous chamber music festivals, including five summers at Yellow Barn (Summer 2014, 2015), three summers at Kneisel Hall, and two summers at Banff, as well as the International Holland Music Sessions and Four Seasons Winter Workshop. She currently maintains active duo partnerships with violist Jonathan Bagg and flutist Hannah Porter Occeña, and performs regularly with Electric Earth concerts.
Emely Phelps has maintained private teaching studios in New York and Boston for over a decade, was a member of the piano faculty at The Geneva Conservatory of Music in Manhattan from 2008-2010, and has coached chamber music at New England Conservatory’s Preparatory Division and Stony Brook University. Since August 2019, she teaches applied piano and keyboard repertoire at Works at Ohio University School of Music, and heads the graduate collaborative piano degree program at the school. Prior to her appointment at Ohio University, she was the head piano TA at Stony Brook University, teaching for and managing their undergraduate piano program. Emely has also been on the faculties the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival, and Icicle Creek’s Young Pianists Camp. |
