Emily Rooke is a British soprano originally from Hereford and Worcester. She received a distinction in her Master of Performance degree at the Royal College of Music where she was an Ian Evans Lombe Scholar supported by the Pauline Hartley Award and studied under the tutelage of Dinah Harris and Bryan Evans MBE.  She was a British Youth Opera Serena Fenwick Young Artist 2020-2021. Emily has performed the role of Lucy (Cherry Town, Moscow) on the main stage at Wales Millennium Centre with Welsh National Youth Opera. She previously sang the role of Léonore (Campra’s Les Fêtes Vénitiennes) at the Liszt Academy, Budapest.

Royal College of Music opera scenes include Griselda (Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella), Damigella (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), Miles (The Turn of the Screw) and Cobweb (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Other scenes include Anima (Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo) at the Museo Galileo, Florence and the titular role of Donizetti’s Betly with British Youth Opera.

Emily has recently become a member of the Philharmonia Chorus and previously was a scholar with the BBC National Chorus of Wales with whom she has performed at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms. She was a step-out soloist for Sir James MacMillan’s Seven Angels broadcasted on BBC Radio 3 and TV series Wonders of the Celtic Deep.

Solo concert performances include Christmas Oratorio (Bach) with Leighton Buzzard Festival Singers, Messiah (Handel) with Academia Musica, Oster-Oratorium (Bach) at RCM, Requiem (Mozart) and Magnificat (Pergolesi) with Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra, as well as Gloria (Vivaldi), Messiah (Handel) and an Angel in Elijah (Mendelssohn).
Emily regularly performed in RCM museum concerts as well as lute song concerts, including at St. John’s, Smith Square for their Crypt Classics series.

Theatrically, Emily performed A Minor Excursion (J. A. Bates) at the Three Choirs Festival and has performed alongside artists from Central School of Ballet, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Royal College of Art for an interdisciplinary performance of Wonder, curated by Diana Krasovska.

Emily was one of the first Vocal Animateur Interns appointed with Welsh National Opera from 2019-2020, where she trained to perform and lead workshops in a variety of settings including: mainstream and SEND schools; community chorus; and hospitals. She has also worked with ABC of Opera to create Makaton signing videos and recordings for their digital teacher’s pack and has previously curated concerts for the National Museum of Wales and BBC Earth Hour. During her studies, Emily curated a digital exhibition on Dame Ethel Smyth’s life and legacy in conjunction with the Royal College of Music.

Emily previously studied at the Conservatorio di Musica ‘Luigi Cherubini’ in Florence, Italy, the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève, Switzerland and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has participated in masterclasses with Sir Mark Elder, Dame Ann Murray, Matteo Dalle Fratte, Marie-Ange Todorovitch and Alison Wells.

Opera Chorus work includes: Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (Opera Holland Park), Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco and Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortilèges (Royal College of Music International Opera School), La Traviata and Carmen (Concerto Classico Opera Company) in Florence, and The Magic Flute (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama).