About

Emily O’Brien (she/her) is a multiple woodwind performer based in the New York Metropolitan area with extensive musical theater performance experience. As an active performer that is passionate about Broadway, she is well-versed in the styles of musical theater to which she brings her performance expertise and versatility on clarinets (Bb, A, Eb, and Bass), flute and piccolo, saxophones (soprano, alto and tenor).

Emily performed in orchestras during the College Light Opera Company’s 2024 summer stock theater season in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, playing in seven distinctly musically different productions. She enjoyed the rigor of the festival that featured Brigadoon, Iolanthe, Holiday Inn, Gypsy, The New Moon, Patience, and A Little Night Music with each running for one week while rehearsing for the following week’s performances.

Early on, Emily discovered her love of playing musicals as a member of pit orchestras in high school performances of West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. This helped to set her sights on this style of music making as her life’s career path. She then played in a variety of shows including Cabaret, Legally Blonde, Dreamgirls, and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, while pursuing undergraduate studies at the University of North Texas, where she majored in clarinet performance.

Emily is also an educator and gave private music lessons for six years in the Denton and Frisco Independent School Districts' public schools where she taught piano and woodwinds. Inspiring her students to discover their own joy of music, she encouraged them to play music outside of mainstream classical repertoire and play music that they are familiar with and find enjoyable.

Alongside her music studies at the University of North Texas, she worked in the school’s large-scale performing arts centers. This included various front of house management roles for symphony concerts in the Winspear Performance Hall and opera productions in the Lyric Theatre. Motivated to continue in front of house management, she later worked with Broadway Dallas at the Music Hall at Fair Park in its 3,000-plus seat performance space; this led her to work on Broadway touring productions of Les Misérables, MJ the Musical, Mamma Mia!, Hadestown, & Juliet, Beetlejuice, among others.

Emily recently graduated from the University of North Texas with a Bachelor of Music in Instrumental Performance (Clarinet) and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing. At UNT, she studied with Dr. Phillip Paglialonga and worked with Gregory Raden (Dallas Symphony Orchestra) and Rob Patterson (Boston University). There, she performed with the Wind Symphony, Studio Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, and Wind Ensemble in addition to chamber music ensembles. Emily is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Woodwind Doubling at Montclair State University where she studies clarinet, flute, saxophone, and oboe. In her free time, Emily enjoys crocheting, reading, and listening to podcasts.

New York University Broadway Winds

During the summer of 2022, Emily participated in New York University's Broadway Winds program, where she was able to work with reed players currently performing on Broadway. The program included masterclasses with Steve Kenyon, Rick Heckman, Kristy Norter, Ed Matthew, and Mark Thrasher, who at the time were performing in The Music Man, Tina, Phantom of the Opera, and Aladdin.

Juilliard Summer Winds

During the summer of 2020, Emily participated in the Juilliard Summer Winds program where she had the opportunity to study with Anthony McGill (New York Philharmonic) as well as participate in a variety of masterclasses with world class clarinetists. These guest artists included Yehuda Gilad (University of Southern California), Anton Rist (Metropolitan Opera), Pavel Vinnitsky (New York University), Jessica Phillips (Metropolitan Opera), Alex Fiterstein (Peabody Institute), Alex Laing (Phoenix Symphony), and Jon Manasse (Juilliard).

Other sessions and guest artists included Alexander Technique with Lori Schiff (Juilliard), instrument repair with Liam Burke, conducting with David Robertson, improvisation and jazz with Nicole Mitchell (University of Virginia) and Mark Dover (Imani Winds), and performance anxiety with Noa Kageyama (Bulletproof Musician).

James Madison High School

Emily graduated from James Madison High School in 2021. During her time at school, she was heavily involved in the Wind Symphony, Marching Band, and the annual musical pit orchestras.

She performed in the orchestra for the school's productions of Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story. In her final year at school she was awarded the John Philip Sousa Award as well as the school's outstanding Instrumental Band Award for being a member of the Virginia Band and Orchestra Director Association's District 12 Band for 4 years (on both Bb and Eb clarinets), and a member of the All-Virginia State Band for 3 years.