Emily Day is an accomplished vocalist and arranger who draws her inspiration from her love of the American Songbook and her engagement in the tapestry that is jazz today. With one foot in the past and one ear to the future, “Emily Day is a classic for a modern age”, says the Seven Days Burlington Independent Newspaper. Currently based in San Francisco, she was raised in Chicago and Vermont then trained in New York and Europe. Emily has given performances across the United States and has been a featured performer in the United Kingdom. Although mostly known as a jazz vocalist, her experience performing in a variety of musical styles has diversified her portfolio and added depth to her sound.
Emily has been performing jazz since the age of 16, and quickly became immersed in its sounds and culture. Her featured performances with big bands throughout her youth awarded her Outstanding Soloist with a Big Band at the North American Music Festival in Toronto, and Outstanding Solo Vocalist and Outstanding Soloist at the UNH Clark Terry Jazz Festival. Emily studied at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York where she befriended and performed with many of the young artists who are shaping jazz today.
After graduating from the New School, Emily was appointed as part-time faculty at the University of Vermont and Johnson State College where she had the privilege of teaching jazz voice and directing the Vocal Jazz Ensembles. During this time she also gained experience performing and recording various styles of popular music such as folk, pop, and soul, collaborating with several regional artists. Her interests in this field led her across the atlantic to study at the Institute for Popular Music at the University of Liverpool. Her research at the University explored the nostalgic function of the voice in popular music and she was awarded an MA in Popular Music Studies in 2010.
In 2012 Emily recorded Where or When, her debut album of original arrangements of standards at the Lane Gibson studios in Charlotte, VT. Emily leads The Emily Day Quartet, performs with and manages the Cosmo Alleycats, teaches applied voice at the Community Music Center of San Francisco, and runs her own private vocal studio in Berkeley, CA.
