EMI FERGUSON

Ok - so it's not a "project" but I'm so so excited I had to share this wonderful news. I am so honored to be named a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grantee - something I never dreamed could happen, but am so grateful! Watch the livestream, tonight from WQXR's Greene Space where I'll be joined by pianist Matthew Aucoin for some of my favorite music! So many thanks to the Fisher family and to Lincoln Center for this incredible recognition!

Emi Ferguson and Nicholas Csicsko join artist David Csicsko, writer Jamie Bernstein, and DJ LaRob K. Rafael for a dive into the wonderful world of composers! Iconic Composers is a book for ages 12+ that introduces readers to 50 AMAZING and ICONIC composers in the Western Classical tradition from the past 1000 years! Pre-order the book now.

For the month of March hear Emi guest host WQXR's McGraw Family Young Artists Showcase. Over 5 episode, Emi features music performed by winners of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, the Paul and Daisy Fellowship for New Americans (part 1) (part 2), musicians pioneering new music by living composers, and young musicians reinvigorating music of the past for today.

Emi joins the Handel & Haydn Society and Maestro David Stern for her first G Major Concerto on period flute - the instrument that Mozart wrote for, live from Boston's Jordan Hall!

Ok...so Woody Guthrie never met Franz Schubert, but can you imagine if they did? Emi's latest program with Frankly Music explores iconic musical storytellers Franz Schubert, Woody Guthrie, Harry T. Burleigh, J.B.F. Wright and Thomas A. Dorsey on a grand tour of some of the most amazing musical storytelling!

At one point, I seriously considered going into Epidemiology full time. While that didn’t happen, it’s still something that I’m very passionate about, so when WQXR gave me the opportunity to combine my interest in disease with music in podcast form, I jumped! And...voilà! New series with WQXR out now! Episode 1 of 4, all delving into the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin!

I fell in love with Etienne Moulinié's 17th century song "Enfin la beauté que j'adore" and recorded a version of it with lutenist Paul Holmes Morton for my 2017 album Amour Cruel. A few years later, this footage from 1903 perfectly captures the mood!

Of course the most famous Aqualung is Jethro Tull's iconic flute rock legend. This Aqualung is my arrangement of Michael Hersch's solo violin arrangement of Orlando Gibbons' "O Lord I Life My Heart to Thee" Gibbons' original is for 5 voices which Hersch reduces for double stopped solo violin. Upon hearing this solo violin version performed I was captivated and immediately wanted to challenge myself to see if I could make a version of Hersch's arrangement for solo flute. Thus - Aqualung - singing while playing the flute - an attempt to recreate Hersch's and Gibbons' beautiful and other worldly harmony.

As part of AMOC, Emi helps to shape the artistic programming for the festival and performs in concerts featuring music by Roscoe Mitchell, J.S. Bach, Michael Hersch, Julius Eastman, George Lewis, Matthew Aucoin, Orlando Gibbons, and Frederic Rzewski.

Emi joins WQXR's 2022 Artist Propulsion Lab - It’s an honor to be a featured artist in WQXR’s 2022 Artist Propulsion Lab! I love what they’re doing to support the future of classical music. I’m so excited to pursue my projects across their platforms, share new recordings, commission new work, perform in The Greene Space, and more!

Watch Emi perform Liza Lim's Bioluminescence, for solo flute, live at the studio of Christopher Cairns

An album of chamber and orchestral music from Matthew Aucoin with whom Emi collaborates as part of the American Modern Opera Company.  Emi plays a number of flutes on Matthew Aucoin's new score for filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe's "Gallup (Na'nizhoozhi) - a collaboration with AMOC and LA Opera.

Virtuoso flutist Emi Ferguson joins Les Délices for a program of riveting chamber works from the eve of the French and Haitian Revolutions. Inspired by philosophical ideals of liberty and equality and early abolitionist writing, we pair works by Joseph Bologne Chevalier de St. Georges and Luigi Boccherini with a new work by Haitian composer Sydney Guillaume.

NYNME releases a new album "Soundings in Fathoms" - 6 works commissioned from American composers to be performed and recorded remotely. New music from B.K. Zervigón, Flannery Cunningham, Nathan Shields, Ed RosenBerg III, Tyson Davis, and Oren Boneh.

Emi plays Gabriela Ortiz's piece Huitzitl at the 75th Ojai Music Festival in Ojai California. The first time the piece has been played on baroque flute since it was written in 1989!

Emi, Conrad Harris, and Coleman Itzkoff premiere Michael Hersch's new trio for flute, violin, and cello "Cairns Hanging Figures" in the studio of Christopher Cairns.

Emi and soprano Ah Young Hong premiere Christopher Fox's new duo for soprano and flute, "Treasure" in the studio of Christopher Cairns.

Emi, Miranda Cuckson, and Coleman Itzkoff premiere Michael Hersch's new arrangement of Orlando Gibbons' Fantasia  in the studio of Christopher Cairns.

The Allemande from Bach's Partita for solo flute - one of my favorite pieces to play - is no less virtuosic today than the day he wrote it, asking flute players to traverse the full length of the instrument from the lowest note to the highest with a constant stream of 16th notes reminiscent of some of his other famous Preludes written for the Cello and Keyboard. One day as I sat alone during the pandemic, I wondered...what would it be like if I took Bach's Allemande and used it as seed material, weaving newly composed A and B repeats into the piece after hearing Bach's original as well as a fun introduction that also incorporates the voice...

Emi joins composer MATTHEW EVAN TAYLOR for a collaboration with the MET Musum and the Metropolis Ensemble, Postcards from the MET, Matthew's 12 part imrprovisational audio/video series for remote performers.

WATCH and learn more here.

Emi joins composer Michael Hersch and sculptor Christopher Cairns in imagining a socially distanced LIVE concert series amongst  sculpture: ...thus far and no further. The series includes 5 live performances between October 2020 and June 2021, and features 5 world premieres by Michael Hersch, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Missy Mazzoli, Christopher Fox, and Alican Çamci.

Emi joins H+H colleagues Aisslinn Nosky, Guy Fishman, Susana Ogata, and Ian Watson for "The Magic of Bach" - stream it now at home!

Scroll to 9:22 for Emi's new take on Bach's Allemande from the flute Partita

The Red Bank Chamber Music series in New Jersey presents Emi and her colleagues Brook Speltz, Brendan Speltz, and Luke Fleming of the Manhattan Chamber Players in works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.

Emi premieres Tyson Davis' Tableau no. III, for solo flute  as part of the Metropolis Ensemble's House Music  series.

Emi joins Jeremy Denk in for an in depth discovery on how to think like Bach! Emi plays a solo flute arrangement of the Adagio from his Sonata in C Major. Other guests include neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, cellist Steven Isserlis, and music therapist Concetta Tomaino.