About Emily

Conductor, composer, and producer Dr. Emily Isaacson is fiercely committed to reimagining classical music for today’s audience. She is the founder and artistic director of Classical Uprising, a performing arts collective serving over 5,000 musicians and music lovers that believes classical music must rise up, challenge current norms, and re-envision where, how, and for whom we make music. For this work, Isaacson was named the 2018 Maine Artist of the Year, one of 50 Mainers Leading the State, one of Portland Radio’s 2024 Outstanding Woman, and a three-time winner of the American Prize.

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With my help, you can Handel it:
Dr. Emily Isaacson offers advisory services in strategic artistic planning, programming, producing, and community engagement. 

Let’s Bach About It:
Dr. Emily Isaacson is available as a speaker at your conference or guest conduct your ensemble.

Equally at home in orchestral and choral conducting, chamber and large ensembles, and with early to contemporary music, Isaacson’s performances have been heralded as “one of the most moving musical events of the decade” (Portland Press Herald), “little short of phenomenal” (Maine Classical Beat), and “not just music...the full panoply of human creative endeavor” (Wiscasset Newspaper).

A strong advocate of new music, in 2008 Isaacson helped to launch Roomful of Teeth, a GRAMMY-winning vocal ensemble which received the 2014 GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and whose Partita for 8 Voices was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

A St. Andrews Society Scholar, Isaacson holds a bachelors in english from Williams College; a masters degree in musicology from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; a masters degree in conducting from the University of Oregon; and a doctorate from the University of Illinois. Her dissertation, “The Binding of Isaac: Comparative Musical Perspectives on Conflict and Faith in the Age of Modernity,” focuses on the music of Israeli composers Aharon Harlap and Menachem Zur and American composer Steve Reich, as well as Akedah compositions by Carissimi, Charpentier, Britten and Stravisnky and visual art by Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and George Segal. Additional research projects have brought her to Cuba, Sweden, Estonia, and Italy.

Committed to bringing music education into underserved communities, Isaacson started the music department for the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools in Washington, D.C. in 2005. In 2014 she helped to launch the Snow Pond Community Music School in central Maine. Isaacson has taught music composition in the Boston public schools through VSA Massachusetts and conducted through Boston City Singers and was Director of Choral Activities at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She now serves as a guest conductor and clinician at choral festivals through New England. Isaacson belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donates a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. She supports the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Alight Humanitarian Relief through her performances.