Emma Bell studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music with Joy Mammen. Her awards include the Promis Award (Glyndebourne), the Richard Lewis / Jean Shanks (to support her studies at the National Opera Studio) and the 1998 Kathleen Ferrier Award. In the same year she joined the Glyndebourne Chorus and made her Glyndebourne Touring Opera debut singing one performance of Handel’s Rodelinda. Subsequently she repeated this role for the Glyndebourne Festival and Tour, at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris and at the Royal Festival Hall, London.

Her roles include Donna Elvira for Opera North and Garsington and at the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Barbican, Tigrane in Radamisto for Opera North, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia for Lausanne Opera and Icelandic Opera and Giulietta in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Almirena in Rinaldo for Grange Park Opera. She sang in the opening concert of the BBC 2001 Promenade concerts conducted by Leonard Slatkin. She has also worked with Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Andrew Davis, Antonio Pappano, William Christie, Andrew Manze and Emmanuelle Haïm.

She was made a BBC New Generations Artist in 2002, is a frequent broadcaster and has given recitals in the Bath, Buxton and Brighton festivals and at the Wigmore Hall. In 2003 she sang Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw for Geneva Opera conducted by Jeffrey Tate, and Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate with the Suisse Romande Orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano. In 2004 her engagements include Merab in Saul with René Jacobs. Rodelinda for the Glyndebourne Festival with Haïm, the title role of Alcina at the Komische Oper, Berlin and a BBC Promenade concert with Manze. Among several prizes, she received an award from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust.