Emily Venturella is a dynamic vocalist specializing in new music, art song, chamber and Baroque repertoire. Dedicated to the advancement of new music by living composers, Emily is a founding member of the composition and performance duo Huitaca Ensemble with composer Felipe Hoyos-González. The duo has performed at Electronic Music Midwest and for the Experimental Music Studios at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The ensemble was selected for the 2024-2025 Graduate Music Award by the Presser Foundation. Their debut album, Reminiscencia was recorded at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago and released in August 2026. Emily has premiered works by Midwest composer Allison McIntosh, including originating the role of Julianne in McIntosh’s opera The Murderess with Landlocked Opera in 2023. Other notable new works in Emily’s repertoire include Jenni Brandon’s Sun Songs and André Jolivet’s Suite Liturgique.
Emily was recently seen performing in the 2025 Ear Taxi Festival, where she premiered Xib’nelab’ by composer Xavier Beteta with Lakeshore Rush. She has also been seen performing with the Longbay Symphony Orchestra in Myrtle Beach, Concerto Urbano Baroque Ensemble in Urbana, and Baroque Artists of Champaign Urbana (BACH) as a soloist.
As a researcher, Emily’s area of focus is art song by underrepresented composers, especially women. Her doctoral thesis, “Marriage, Matrescence, and Motherhood in the Life and Music of Josephine Lang,” explores the intersection and impact of gender, class, and motherhood on the compositional productivity of nineteenth century composer Josephine Lang. She has additionally researched and performed the works of Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová, including the song cycle Navždy.
Dr. Venturella also served as Instructor of Voice at Millikin University from 2024-2026, where she taught studio voice. Emily holds a DMA in Vocal Performance and Literature with a cognate in Musicology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She further holds a MM in Vocal Performance from the University of Kansas and a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has received Level 1 and 2 of Estill Voice Training and was a Voice Teaching Intern at the NATS Summer Internship in 2025.