Songbird is back in town

Karoline Tuckey | 11th March 2010

Featherston's sweetest-sounding songbird is back from the German opera circuit to get married and perform a concert in her home town.
Georgia Jamieson Emms, 27, has been based in Cologne for the past 18 months with partner Andreas, who is half-German but moved to New Zealand when he was a child. The singer, who is a lyric coloratura soprano, went to Pirinoa School then St Matthew's Collegiate before earning a Bachelor of Music with first class honours at Victoria University. She has won two New Zealand Aria competitions and been runner-up in two others, as well as reaching the semi-finals in the prestigious Lexus Song Quest in 2008.
While in Germany Jamieson Emms has been winning parts with opera companies around the country, living out of a suitcase, and when back in Cologne has been studying with a veteran of New York's Metropolitan Opera.
''Touring is exhausting, and it's a disparate life, never being centred anywhere,'' she said.
''It's exciting and wonderful, but you go on stage and sing to several thousand people, and they are applauding and you're a star, but then you go home to an empty hotel room and watch the E channel and order dinner.''
But for all the sacrifice, she says she is living her dreams.
''As a child I was a big fan of dress-ups, so now I get to play dress-ups every day.''
For now, after a garden wedding at her family's home in Featherston the pair will go back to Germany where she plans to continue her study at the Hamburg Conservatory of Music.
While home, she will take time out from organising her wedding to perform with the Featherston Gentlemen Singers at the town's Anzac hall, this Sunday March 14, and the door sales will help contribute to her studies.