Emily Shisko is a San Francisco based composer, performer and teacher. Her most current works live in the intersection between traditional compositional methods and experimental and electronic performance and installation practices. She serves as artist-in-residence at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, and as Junior Apprentice Director with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, where she is dedicated to educating and training the next generation of musicians and music lovers.
A native of Long Beach, California, she earned her Bachelor’s in Composition and Theory from her hometown school CSULB where she studied under Carolyn Bremer, Robin Cox and Bruce Miller. She was awarded the Paul C. Lindsey III Memorial Scholarship for achievement in composition.
After spending several years cultivating a studio of 30+ students and accompanying choirs, church services and soloists of all sorts she packed her things and moved to Boston. There, she earned her Master’s in composition at the Boston Conservatory where she studied under Andy Vores, Jan Swafford and Osvoldo Golijov. She was the recipient of the conservatory’s 2007 Roger Sessions Memorial Composition Award.
Emily was a co-founder and artist with the Whitehaus Family Record, a performing arts collective and venue in Boston. The weekly Hoots that defined the collective’s early years had a profound effect on her musicianship. She continues to participate in festivals and friendship with the musicians, poets and performers there.
