Biography

Emily Beech is an Irish soprano. She is a Britten-Pears Young Artist for 2026-27 on the Composition and Performance course, where she is generously supported by the Keith Coventry bursary. She greatly looks forward to working with Helen Grime, Claire Booth and Mark-Anthony Turnage as part of the BPYAP this Autumn. Emily was a British Youth Opera Serena Fenwick Artist for 2024, where she had the privilege of working with industry-leading professionals including Nicky Spence, Allyson Devenish and David Gowland. She was also a SongEasel Young Artist for 2023, and a Waterperry Opera Festival Young Artist (Director) for 2023.

Emily looks forward to performing the role of Victory in upcoming production of Bitter Visions: By Order of Hildegard for the Grimebourne Festival 2026, a re-working of Hildegard von Bingen’s morality play Ordo Virtutum. Recent operatic roles include Amor/Valetto (L’Incoronazione di Poppea) for HGO, and Oscar (Un ballo in Maschera) for OperaonLocation.

Emily graduated with Distinction from her postgraduate studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2023 under the tutelage of Sophie Grimmer, where her studies were generously supported by the Kathleen Roberts Scholarship and the John Clemence Charitable Trust. Previously, she read Music at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a first-class honours degree.

She had success as a prize-winner in the AESS Patricia Routledge National English Song Competition 2023, and the Peter Hearn Foundation Competition 2023. Emily was delighted to be a finalist in the Elisabeth Schumann Lieder Competition 2023, Lillian Ash French Song Competition 2023 and the Trinity Laban English Song Competition 2022.

Emily has performed in masterclasses with Keval Shah, Ailish Tynan, Susan Bullock, Fiona Kimm, Nelly Miricioiu and Amanda Roocroft. Emily’s musical education is rooted in choral singing; she has sung with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Birmingham University Singers, BBC Proms Youth Choir, and most recently with Levedy Ensemble for the Sounds Sublime Festival 2023. She was the inaugural Soprano Scholar for the Thames Philharmonic Choir for 2021-22.

Alongside her work as a musician, Emily is a fledgling opera director and facilitator. Most recently, she directed a touring production of new children’s opera The King’s Pants for Opera Prelude. For the Tête-a-Tête Festival 2023 she directed Robert Ely’s 1944: Home Fires. For Waterperry Opera Festival 2023 she directed the A Hand of Bridge for the Young Artist’s Gala, and was assistant director on the double bill of Acis and Galatea (dir. Rebecca Meltzer) and Dido and Aeneas (dir. Guy Withers). Previous assistant directing credits include Hampstead Garden Opera's production of Agrippina (dir. Ashley Pearson), and Noye’s Fludde (dir. Oscar Simms) for Pimlico Music Foundation. Emily was a Junior Fellow (Opera Assistant Director) for Guildhall School of Music and Drama 2024-25, where she assisted Martin Lloyd-Evans and Oliver Platt.

To stay afloat living in London, Emily works part-time for the NHS at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, project managing research studies for patients in critical care.