Emely Phelps

Praised by the Boston Globe for her “fleet, energetic, and bright-toned” playing, pianist Emely Phelps enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. Second prize winner of the 2023 Ernst Bacon Prize for American Music, Emely has given more than 50 performances over the past two years, with recent highlights including an all-American solo recital and educational residency in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s birthplace of East Liverpool, OH, 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.

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 given world premieres of more than a dozen compositions and worked closely with Jörg Widmann, Shulamit Ran, Lei Liang, Robert McClure, and Richard Wernick in performances of their works. She will finish recording her first solo album in March through an Artist Residency at Yellow Barn, featuring a survey of American piano music, including works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Elliott Carter, Robert McClure and a new co-commission from Tyson Gholston Davis.

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), all highlighting duos by female composers.

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. 

Emely is thrilled to be joining the University of Georgia as Limited-Term Assistant Professor this fall, having most recently served as Associate Professor of Instruction at Ohio University, where from 2019-2025 she co-chaired the keyboard division, taught applied piano, chamber music, and keyboard repertoire, and directed the graduate collaborative piano degree program. Prior to her appointment at OU, she was the head piano TA at Stony Brook University, teaching for and managing their undergraduate piano program. Emely has givenmaster classes at numerous universities, and been a featured presenter at Ohio University’s Piano Pedagogy Seminar and the Ohio Music Teachers Association State Conference.

Born in Frederick, Maryland, Emely began her piano studies with Carole Kriewaldt and Marjorie Lee before receiving her B.M. and M.M. from the Juilliard School as a student of Julian Martin. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Christina Dahl, and a Graduate Diploma in chamber music from NEC, where she had the privilege of being mentored by Vivian Weilerstein during Trio Cleonice’s residency at the institution.