Emma Curtis
Singer. Therapist. Teacher.
Voice Use and Performance Anxiety Specialist.
Emma helps people whose feelings and beliefs get in the way of having a strong and secure voice in both professional or personal context.
She teaches using effective and science-based methods in an empathetic safe and often fun environment to help develop your voice and build your confidence, whether you want singing lessons, help for performance anxiety or both together.
“A violin is an instrument, a piano is an instrument, but a voice is a person” – Peter Pears
Benefit from working with an expert
Emma is a classically trained opera soloist with more than thirty years of international performance and recording experience. She has significant public speaking and performance experience through her work designing and leading person-centred ceremonies and conference events over the last decade.
Emma has become an expert in coping strategies, with over thirty years of lived experience as an opera soloist on international stages and through the study of many therapeutic approaches to coping with anxiety and stress.
She now offers a person-centred and integrative therapeutic approach to performance anxiety. combining CBT, ACT, Mindfulness and Hypnosis with breathwork and, sometimes, bodywork. A multimodel integrative approach is important, because one-size cannot not fit all, and you are the expert in your experience; “I have professional and lived expertise and together, in collaboration, we’ll find your flow and renewed performance confidence”.
For professional performers there are still very few therapists who also have experience of the unique challenges of a performance career. Whether you want to develop your voice, working on vocal techinque with someone who understands performance anxiety, or work on performance anxiety to develop coping skills and resilience with someone who understands being a professional voice user, Emma is that person.
Emma is a certified psychological therapist (DipCBH, DipSMRB) specialising in resilience-building, voice and confidence, and a vocal pedagog who keeps up with modern voice science research, plus being a certified breath worker and therapeutic body worker. She is also a research psychologist interested in expectation and perception in performance, and the effect of stress on the vocal tract.
Emma is trauma-informed and embraces diversity, including neurodivergent and gender non-conforming people.
Emma is a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society.
Sessions
Emma offers one to one voice and/or therapy sessions in person in Claygate, Surrey, and London or online.
Clients can choose between intensive sessions (4 to 6 hour immersive VIP days), regular or ‘as needed’ sessions by the hour, or a mixture.