Admired by Parterre Box as full of "vivacity and sparkle," Italian- American Soprano Emily Damasco is a force to be reckoned with. The winner of first prize in Opera Grand Rapids' 2023 Vanderlaan Prize Collegiate Vocal Competition and Southern Illinois Young Artist Organization, she was a 2025 finalist in the George and Nora London Foundation Vocal Competition and is a recipient of the Angelo Sylvestro Festorazzi Scholarship. In 2018, she won the Gold Prize and Max Mara Visionary Award at the National YoungArts Competition. Emily has performed numerous roles such as La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, Paquette in Candide, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte, Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw, and Fox Gold Stripe in The Cunning Little Vixen with Curtis Opera Theatre. She has performed with Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Curtis Symphony Orchestra as Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte's Act 1 Finale and as Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier's final trio. In 2025, Emily founded Magical Music and Medicine, an immersive musical project in collaboration with Music Therapists at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia tailored to hospital patients and personnel. Emily earned her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and Masters of Music in Opera at the Curtis Institute of Music and will continue her studies as a Young Artist at the Domingo Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program in Los Angeles.