Soprano Emma Mountcastle (BA, MMus) is Maryland born and raised. She attended University of Maryland, Baltimore County where she received a Bachelors of Art in Vocal Performance, after which she relocated to New Orleans where she attended Loyola University New Orleans and received her Masters of Music. While in New Orleans, she sang with the New Orleans Opera performing in both traditional productions such as Don Giovanni and Turandot, as well as new works such as Terrance Blanchard’s Champion.

She has sung roles such as Anna Maurrant in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, Susannah in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, The Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozza di Figaro, and Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. She has a deep love of Art Song and Lieder, performing such works as Wagner’s Wesendonklieder, Strauss’s 4 Lieder, Op.27, Schumann’s Frauen-Liebe unt Leben, Jake Heggie’s song cycle Statuesque, and chansons by composers such a Francis Poulenc, Franz Liszt, and Reynaldo Hahn. Her deep love of collaboration and understanding of expression translate into her teaching style, often encouraging students to make informed artistic choices and engage deeper in both learning and performance.

Mountcastle has extensive experience as a church musician having served as the soprano section leader and soloist at the St. Louis Cathedral Choir in New Orleans’s Historic French Quarter. She currently sings at multiple churches in Baltimore and surrounding areas.

She spent years in both private and public classrooms teaching music literacy, artistic expression, and choral singing as well as general music education. She is a Kodály Certified music educator with a license to teach K-12 Vocal Music. While maintaining a private voice studio, she is pleased to be bringing a student first approach to her studio at Peabody aiming to encourage both vocal and artistic growth as well as building strong musicianship and deeper understanding and learning about different styles and genres of music.