Faculty and Staff
Emery Stephens, Baritone
Department of Music & Dance
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
(734) 487-1336
estephe2@emich.edu
Baritone Emery Stephens is an active singer, voice teacher and researcher. He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Center for Black Music Research, College Music Society, National Association of Negro Musicians and the Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music. His first CD project, Communion with the Sacred, was released in 2002 with musicians John Tabler and Ces Erdman. Stephens’ featured performances include the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra productions of Handel's Messiah, Copland's Old American Songs and Orff's Carmina Burana. In addition, he has appeared with the critically acclaimed Handel and Haydn Society Chorus and the Period Orchestra of Boston under the direction of Maestros Christopher Hogwood and John Finney. Stephens also premiered the role of the Male Speaker (opposite Pulitzer Prize-winner David McCullough, narrator) in the 1999 performance of Dan Welcher’s soul-stirring oratorio, JFK: Voice of Peace at Boston’s Symphony Hall under the direction of Maestro Daniel Beckwith. Stephens’ other solo engagements include performances with Quincy Choral Society, Ann Arbor Symphony, Carolina Ballet, North Carolina Symphony, Cape Fear Chorale, Janus 21 Chamber Ensemble, Wilmington Choral Society, Chorus Pro Musica, Instages Theatre, Longy Chamber Orchestra and the Wilmington Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. As a member of the Gordon College Chamber Singers, Stephens performed as a soloist in France, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden.
The Boston Phoenix notes that Mr. Stephens sings, “with ringing suavity and articulate intelligence.” Music critic Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe wrote, “As Mel in Michael Tippett’s Knot Garden, Mr. Stephens disappeared entirely into his character.” A versatile and charismatic opera singer, Stephens has worked with several prominent stage directors, including Dorothy Danner, Simon Target, Elkhanah Pulitzer, Kay Walker Castaldo, Leon Major, Will Graham and Peter Sellars as well as with noted choreographer Bill T. Jones. He has appeared with internationally known conductor and scholar Andrew Parrott in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre at Memorial Hall for the Boston Early Music Festival production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. Additionally, he has performed with the Boston Lyric Opera/Opera New England, Boston University Opera Institute, University of Michigan Opera Theatre, Prism Opera, Cambridge Lieder and Opera Society, Opera-at-Longy, and Operafest. His operatic roles include Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Mel in Tippett’s The Knot Garden, Paulus and McRae in Weill’s Lost in the Stars, Melchior and Balthazar in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Second Crapshooter in Foss’s The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Shepherd and Spirit in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Father in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Junius in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, Damis in Mechem's Tartuffe, Dosher in James P. Johnson’s De Organizer, and Maximillian in Bernstein’s Candide.
A 1999 regional finalist in the Leontyne Price Vocal Arts Competition, Emery Stephens is equally committed to singing an operatic and concert repertoire that encompasses a wide range of musical styles. As part of his research activities at the University of Michigan, Stephens has co-authored the article “Barriers and Benefits: The Impact of Learning Art Songs and Spirituals by African-American Composers on Voice Students from all Racial Backgrounds” for the forthcoming volume of The Scholarship of Multicultural Teaching and Learning (Jossey-Bass). He is on the music faculty at two universities: Concordia-Ann Arbor and Eastern Michigan. He also serves as choir director at the Unity Church of Ann Arbor.
He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where he studies voice with Professor Daniel Washington. Prior to his doctoral studies, Stephens taught voice and music fundamentals at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
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