Emily Mason has been a musician in the DC area for over twelve years as a classical & jazz pianist, harpist, organist, and composer. Emily started out as an instrumentalist, performing on harp, piano, and organ for twelve years before discovering a love for composing in 2017. Since then, she has been tirelessly writing for individual artists and concerts, as well as for two choirs and two youth orchestras which she directed from December 2014 through July 2020.
Emily's compositions have enchanted audiences in the DC area and across the United States. In January 2021, her setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Invitation to Love" received Special Commendation by the King's Singers in their New Music Prize competition. Emily received the first place prize for the Notre Dame Magnificat Choir Composition Contest in May 2021, and in December 2019, her setting of the famous Robert Frost poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" for string orchestra and tenor was performed by Marco Panuccio and the Cincinnati Conservatory Strings in Panuccio's Emmy® Nominated "O Holy Night" national concert tour. In August 2021, Emily won the Cantate Chamber Singers' Thirteenth Biennial Young Composer's Competition, whereupon she was commissioned to write a piece
which was premiered in their April 2022 concert. In January 2022, Billy Smith and the Mark Morris Dance Group Student Company commissioned Emily to write an original suite for harp trio, which was premiered with original choreography by Billy Smith in the company’s June 2022 performance. From May 2020 through May 2021, Emily collaborated with Tenor Allan Palacios Chan and 124 artists from 15 countries to produce the stunning "Pilar's Hallelujah": a virtual music and dance tribute to a Filipina nurse who gave her life caring for COVID-19 patients. Among Emily's proudest and most challenging composition accomplishments was The Bach Project, a personal study modelled after J.S. Bach's practice of composing new music weekly for an entire year, wherein she studied many compositional styles and wrote for a wide range of voices and instruments and which was performed weekly.
Since relocating to the DC area from southern Virginia in 2010, Emily has played and sung for a wide range of events in and around DC and across the US. The venues she has played include the World Health Organization in DC, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, St. Thomas More Cathedral, and several events for the Library of Congress. She also played harp and cello with the Manassas Symphony Orchestra for three seasons.
The teachers Emily has studied with include Joy Schreier for collaborative piano, harp under Elizabeth Blakeslee, and jazz piano/composition under Mark Christopher Brandt. Emily keeps up a rigorous practice and composition routine, and hopes to have the opportunity to formally study composition and further hone her skills. She has also become proficient with video and audio editing using Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro to mix virtual choir and instrumental videos.