Feature Article!

Amber graduated from Moravian College in May 2018 and was honored to be featured in the 2018 summer magazine!  See article here.

“Soprano Amber Emerson’s magnificent career with Moravian College’s music department culminated fittingly, beautifully, in her senior recital, “Dream a Little Dream.” Now her dream of becoming a professional singer is beginning to unfold. Emerson will accompany faculty member and jazz pianist Skip Wilkins on a paid performance tour of several cities in the Czech Republic this July.The young soprano is a remarkable talent, but as mentor Wilkins describes, “She has an iron stomach for hard work.” Wilkins, along with Neil Wetzel, department chair and jazz studies director, and Tony Gairo, Moravian College artist/lecturer, helped guide Emerson’s impassioned preparation. Wilkins, who began working with Emerson in her junior year, notes that after only one year, she was ready to headline at the Deer Head Inn, a jazz mecca located in Pennsylvania’s Poconos, where she performed twice with the Skip Wilkins Trio. “And I had the confidence in her to feature her on the main stage of a big jazz festival in South Morava, Czech Republic,” Wilkins says.Emerson’s passion for performing has roots in storytelling. She loved listening to her mom read to her and her brothers, and she wrote her first story in third grade. Of course, music colored her imagination, too. She recalls, at the age of 8, listening to Frank Sinatra while she helped her dad fold the laundry. “I would roll up a sock and sing into it like it was a microphone,” Emerson says.Stories and music blended together over the years for Emerson in musical theater and jazz performances. “For me, the stage means storytelling. It means sharing something with someone else, whether that be the pianist a few feet away or the audience member 16 rows back,” she says.“I love the interaction with an audience, particularly in the jazz context,” Emerson adds. “Making eye contact and playing off individual reactions is so much fun.”Emerson plans to move to New York City within the year to pursue her dream of performing on the stages of a city that is a venue for some of the world’s greatest performances.And her audience will be dreaming a little dream of her, as we look forward to what’s sure to be a brilliant career.” - Claire Kowalchik, Moravian College Magazine, Summer 2018 Edition