Emily Varney is a versatile British soprano, passionate about collaborative story-telling on the operatic and concert stage.

Emily has performed the roles of Pepik and Frog in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Second Fairy in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for the Royal Northern College of Music; scenes as Marzellina in Beethoven’s Fidelio; Miss Ellen in Delibes’ Lakme and Miss Pinkerton in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief with RNCM. After performances of Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Juliette in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, she looks forward to joining the Vocal Facility Scenes at the Royal Academy of Music as Laurette in Bizet’s Docteur Miracle.

A keen performer of contemporary repertoire, Emily has collaborated and performed world premieres by Steven Picket with the Hallé Orchestra, Ben Parry for Snape Maltings, Anna Meredith for the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival and for National Youth Choir’s Young Composers, Emily Hazrati, Will Harmer, Alex Tay, and Millicent James, under the NMC record label.

Emily enjoys performing regularly as a soloist of oratorio and concert repertoire. Recent highlights include Ravel’s Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé as part of the Royal Academy of Music’s collaboration with Leipzig orchestra, Klassik Underground and lighting designer, Ric Mountjoy, concerts for the Academy Baroque Soloists under Eamonn Dougan, and performances of Dvorák’s Mass in D, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, McDowall’s Ave Maris Stella, Pickett’s Goddess Gia, Poulenc’s Gloria, Rutter’s Requiem, Schubert’s Mass in G and Vivaldi’s Gloria. She looks forward to her first performances of Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium and Todd’s Mass in Blue this upcoming season.

Born in London to self-proclaimed ‘unmusical family’, Emily began her training in Manchester, becoming a first class graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music under Hilary Summers. During her time in the Northwest, Emily was a Lay Clerk at the Manchester Oratory and Salford Cathedral, alumnus of Genesis Sixteen and the National Youth Choir’s Fellowship and continues to sing regularly for KANTOS Chamber Choir. She is undertaking her masters at the Royal Academy of Music as a Josephine Baker Artist and studies under Mary Nelson and her coaches, James Baillieu and Joseph Middleton.

Emily is grateful to The Wayne Sleep Foundation and to The Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, Steinberg, Media Technologies, The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Ofenheim Trust, Music Music and AOTOS for their previous support.

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