Emily Hazrati (b. 1998) is a composer and performer based in London. She was a Britten Pears Young Artist 2021-22 and a Junior Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she learned with Julian Philips and Hollie Harding.
Her music is spacious, immersive and environmental: frequently informed by sounds and landscapes from the natural world, as well as ideas around breath, ritual, and circularity. She has a particular affinity to writing for voice and working with text, and is interested in collaborative, interdisciplinary ways of making art; centering the performer in her creative process. Storytelling sits at the heart of her practice, which has more recently been rooted in global politics. With her collaborator Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, Emily explores themes and narratives such as displacement and diaspora, trauma and recovery, biodiversity, queer dramaturgy, multilingualism, and hybrid cultural sensibilities.
Emily has recently been developing her second chamber opera, TIDE (BPA commission), which received its first, sold-out performances at the Aldeburgh Festival 2022. She has worked with ensembles and organisations including: BBC Singers, Royal Opera House, Psappha, Siglo de Oro, The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Tim Gill and David Gompper, Richard Casey, and CHROMA ensemble, amongst many others. Emily created a new work (CLOUDSCAPES) for guitarist and Radio 3 broadcaster Tom McKinney, and was commissioned by Choir & Organ Magazine for their 2020 New Music Series (May issue). Her music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and is published in the Multitude of Voyces Anthology of Sacred Music by Women Composers (Volume 3: Advent to Candlemas). Upcoming projects include commissions from Oxford Lieder, Ligeti Quartet, NYCGB, and Thames Philharmonic Choir.
When not composing, Emily is an active mezzo-soprano and instrumentalist. She holds a choral scholarship with West London Chorus, sings as a regular of several choirs across London, and is a former alto of The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. Emily has performed with various ensembles around the UK, USA and The Netherlands, in venues such as Royal Festival Hall, Barbican, St John's Smith Square, King's College Chapel, and St Bavo Cathedral, Haarlem. She frequently performs her own compositions and, most recently, has had a new piece written for her by composer Kit McCarthy.
As part of her practice, Emily is also passionate about community, social and outreach projects. Her first major placement was as a student facilitator with Turtle Key Song (2018): a Turtle Key Arts project that brings music, songwriting, movement and singing to people with dementia and their companions/carers. During her MA, Emily took part in Creative Minds in Song: a social project where composers create new songs using the words of those with lived experience of mental illness. Emily's song (küçük aslan), incorporating fragments of Turkish language and music, was premiered at the St Marylebone Festival in July 2021.
Emily completed her MA in Opera Making and Writing with Distinction at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, receiving generous support from the Thompson Educational Trust. Prior to this, she graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Composition, and from Oxford University with a BA (Hons) in Music. Emily is a previous winner of the Royal Opera House Fanfare Competition; her fanfare was recorded under the baton of Antonio Pappano, and played as a warning gong at the Royal Opera House for a year.