SONGWRITER + COMPOSER
Rooted and restless, Emily’s music lives at the crossroads of folk tradition and chamber sound. Stark lyrics over banjo and piano tell powerful stories about stretching your limits and finding your way home. Her intimate songs and intricate chamber pieces ask the listener to hear the past as part of the present. Ephemera Ballads (2025) revives two ghosts of the Hudson Valley, reimagining the lives of these women through the rhythms of old broadside poetry.
Emily is a founding member of The Early Mays, an old-time, vocal harmony trio that topped the National Folk-DJ charts, won the Clifftop Neo-Traditional Band competition, and performed on NPR’s Mountain Stage.
“Unites the traditional and the modern in a stunning, beautiful fashion…”
—Pop Matters
Ephemera Ballads
Chamber-folk piece that gives shape to ghosts of the Hudson Valley. For voice, banjo, flute, clarinet, electric guitar, piano and bass.
Rounder Songs
Appalachian song cycle by Emily Pinkerton & Patrick Burke (New Amsterdam Records).
LoOKING For Violeta
Original score for dramatic work about Chilean artists Violeta and Nicanor Parra with Quantum Theatre