Emma Hospelhorn - Flute

Praised by the Chicago Classical Review for her “standout” and “joyful” playing, Emma Hospelhorn is a flutist whose creative practices resist easy categorization. As a member of Ensemble Dal Niente, she has premiered or recorded works by composers including George Lewis, Hilda Paredes, Erin Gee, Jeff Parker, Igor Santos, and hundreds more. As one half of The Machine Is Neither…, an electroacoustic collaboration with Ben Sutherland that uses motion capture technology and music to explore the relationships between people and machines, she has co-composed works including Terra Lingua (2019/2020) for dancers in motion-capture suits and live instruments, and Tree of Secrets (2018) for audience and listening lamp. She records and performs with a number of rock and pop groups, and additional collaborations include a working duo for instruments and homemade circuits with cellist Katinka Kleijn, as well as stints with the Neo-Futurists, Lookingglass Theatre, and Silk Road Rising. She also performs her own music under the moniker Em Spel.

She has performed her solo improvised works at New Music New College, Big Ears Festival, and the NC New Music Initiative; and collaboratively at venues including the Palacio de Belles Artes, Museo Nacional del Arte, Omaha Under the Radar, Ravinia, Symphony Center, the Library of Congress, Walt Disney Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Emma is the music director for Musical Bridges to Memory, a therapeutic program for patients with dementia and their families. She holds a PhD in Learning Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where her research focuses on spatial and embodied learning in musical contexts. She brings a research-based and student-centered perspective to her teaching practice as flute instructor for the Chicago Academy for the Arts and New Trier High School. She also holds degrees from Columbia University and CUNY Queens College, and was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2007-2009. For a list of her recordings and publications, visit www.emmahospelhorn.com.