This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Emily E. Finke

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Today we interview opera singer and songwriter Emily E. Finke.  She was joining us from Florida, and was kind enough to talk about her work and music in general.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to this podcast on I called for. I'm happy to have a guest with me today. Please go ahead and introduce yourself, please. My name is Emily E. Think, and I am a musician, a singer, and a songwriter from Florida. All right. So welcome. I believe I found you on the one of the Facebook groups for podcasting. Yeah. Happy to have you. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. All right. So let's talk about your music. Had you get started. Well, I've heard some here music, really good stuff, by the way. Thank you. So had you get started?

I got started in music when I was six. My sister and I actually started together. We went up to our mom and we said, we want to learn how to play music. and I really don't remember exactly what prompted that. I know there were some people in our family that played music at the time. And I guess we were just intrigued by that and we wanted to learn too. So we told our mom we wanted to learn music and she said, no, you don't really, do you? We said, yeah, we do. So because my mom is very involved parent. My dad was in the military.

So he was gone a lot. So my mom, you know, picked up a lot of that slack and she actually homeschooled us for all of education. So she was very involved and she knew that if we took music lessons, she would have to learn music as well. But she made us commit to sticking with it for at least a year. And she honestly thought that we wouldn't want to learn after a year. She thought that we would give up. And we just loved it so much. And we wanted to continue with it. I've been doing this now for 20 years and I can't imagine even stopping it. But yeah, that was kind of where it all started. I don't know, just an intrinsic love of music.

It, you know, aside from my faith, it is, you know, one of the most important things in my life. I can't imagine my life without it. It is what I wake up looking forward to doing every day and go to sleep thinking about it. But I now play so many instruments that I've lost the count of. I sing. I write, I produce. I started my own indie record label a few years ago. So it's just, yeah, it's all consuming.

Excellent. Excellent. So let's talk about what style of music you do. I heard a lot of like old time balance and some opera in there. Yeah, we grew up listening to a huge variety of music. When my sister and I started learning to play music, we were learning classically because that's really the foundation of Western music specifically. But we listened to what my parents listened to,

Billy Joel and the Bee Gees and Sister Sledge and Jim Croce. And my family was in O'Country. My favorite singer when I was six years old was John Denver. I love Johnny Cash and Randy Travis. We grew up listening to contemporary Christian like casting crowns and Francesca Badicelli and, you know, like rock, like Elvis and the Charlie Daniels band and just all kinds of stuff. We listen to such a variety of music and it's really shaped my own style of performing, but growing up, listening to all the old music, that's really what I fell in love with. I don't know if you can see behind me. My records, yeah, Dean Martin and Bean Crosby, they're my favorites. I love Wayne Newton and Jim neighbors. And I, that's personally what I think most of my style comes from. But like I said,

just a training in classical music. I am an opera singer. So a lot of that comes through. in my style of performing and the way I write music. But I also write in, you know, styles that's a little bit more like a folk or a country sound. I do torch songs. I do, you know, like you said, ballads and stuff. I do a little bit of rock and roll and just I just love music as a whole. I love good music. And no matter what the style is, no matter what the genre is, it's all just music.

And I think we can, especially as the industry, get a little bit too deep into splitting hairs over styles of music. At the end of the day, it's all just music. And good music is always going to be good music no matter what the style is. And if people appreciate music, they will appreciate music no matter what the style is. But a few years ago, when I started releasing my own music, it was such a hard thing to try and figure out what to categorize my music as, because when you release it, you have to pick a genre. And I was like, I don't know what to release this as. And so I started coming up with ideas. of what how do I describe this? Because so many people ask, well, what's your style? What's your sound? What's it? What's your

genre? And I now, I call myself a multi-genre artist, but my specific style, which is just sort of a culmination of everything. Like I said, it's my entire life. All the music that I love that I grew up listening to, it's old and new. It's just everything. And so I came up with the term called Nouveau Classic. and that is sort of the term that I'm coining, my new genre of what I call my music and music that's similar to mine. Nufo Classic. I want to make sure I heard that correctly. That is awesome. That is awesome.

Thank you. So, see, opera. Are you familiar with Joyce Dudenato at all? Oh, yes, yes. She's a me so I've done a lot of studying of some of her. stuff. Yeah. I did a internship well over 10 years ago now for our local PBS station here in Kansas City. During my internship, Joyce DeAnato was actually performing at the Kauffman Center here. Oh, that's so cool. It's been a whole week at the Kauffman Center. I'm doing like behind-the-scenes

stuff and their shots. a good number for two or three different performances with the KC symphony. She's from a KC. Summer originally. So it's up for homecoming, which I thought was pretty cool. That's cool. And a very nice, very nice lady. Yes. Yeah, it definitely comes through in her performances and her master classes.

Just just how wonderful she is. And of course, you know, her technique and her voice is fabulous. Yeah. Are there any other current musicians that they can be opera or whatever that you look to for inspiration or that makes any sense? Especially specifically in the opera world, Chichilli Bartoli has always been a very big influence on me. My vocal coach has always said her and Marilyn Horn. Because that's an important thing in opera specifically is to sort of know what your vocal fog is and where you fit in what roles you would play.

And so you need to sort of study other performers who are already playing those roles and see how they're doing it, what their techniques are. And you can sort of study that and determine where you would fit in. So I've always, my voice has always been very similar to Chichilla Bartoli and Marilyn Horn. So they are, have been two opera singers that I would study a lot and sort of, you know, learn what, how they were doing and just, yeah. So, and both of them just fantastic voices, but Chichalia is, Chichalia is so fun. and she is incredible. If you've never listened to some of her stuff,

like specifically, Ajitata that doi Vente, is just mind-blowing. And she is the queen of coloratura for a reason. Nobody can do it quite like her. But it is definitely fun to try and sort of try and achieve the things that she has. But outside of the opera world, There's not as many current performers that necessarily I look to per se.

I can think of a couple that are still alive, like Wayne Newton. But obviously, you know, he's from a different time period than we. There's, I mean, there's still amazing artists out there, but my style, it tends to be rather different from the mainstream. dream. So I just tend to look to sort of older performers for my style inspiration. All right. Cool. Cool. All right. So do you have any advice to anyone who might be interesting in getting into musical in general and opera specifically? I can't say I really have much advice for getting into opera specifically. I'm a trained opera singer, but I decided to sort of start on my own path. So I didn't pursue getting into operas

when I got to that point. I decided to sort of go on my own path. But just for anybody that's wanting to get into singing, it's so important to learn the fundamentals and the basics, which is learning to sing classically. And then once you can do that, you can, you can do you know what pretty much anything that you want to do and i am a huge advocate for working with a vocal coach because the voice is a very delicate instrument it's it's very sensitive and because it's part of your body but we can also get a little scared of making sure that we're doing everything properly and everything you know by rote and we're taking care of it and it's absolutely necessary it's very important to lay that foundation first but once you do that don't be afraid of playing with

your voice because it is you. You have to discover how your voice works. It's going to be different than everybody else. You're going to be able to utilize it in ways different than everybody else. And you have to discover that on your own. Nobody else can do that for you. And it wasn't until I really started just trying things. And after I had that foundation laid and I just started trying things and playing with it and trying different styles. And I was able to discover exactly. what I loved about my voice, what it could do, and how to utilize that in ways to make my sound more authentic and not just sounding so, so mechanical in the way you're singing. And so you have to, but that's, that's something that you have to discover for yourself. So don't be afraid of, of discovery and trying things for yourself. There is one of, I think that applies to so many things in life and it's something I'm always reminding myself of. And, is that you can't be afraid of failure. And if you have the right mindset, failures, quote, unquote, are just the next stepping point. They're not an end. They're not going to stop you.

If you can work through that and say, well, that didn't work. I'm going to try something else. So just don't be afraid of failure. And so many times, especially as a creative, when we come up with plans, we come up with ideas, projects that we're going to execute. And we're working towards that. And inevitably, things always go wrong. Nothing is ever perfect. Nothing ever goes the way we envision or the way we plan. You have your plan. But it is so important as a creative person in a creative industry to leave yourself open to when those things happen. Because I guarantee you, when you are open to it and you work with those things that go wrong, those problems, if you want to call them that your creative instincts kick in more than you could ever have planned for from the

start. And when those creative instincts kick in, you can, you become so much more imaginative, you become so much more industrious in the things that you're doing. And you end up with an even better project at the end than you imagine. It might be different than what you imagined at the beginning. But it's, it's even better than what you thought it could be. So that, that just applies to so many things. But if you're interested in becoming a singer specifically, get with a very good vocal coach that understands the physiology of the voice and the body. And my vocal coach is a holistic vocal coach. And I think that's so important because the voice is a part of the body and just get the fundamentals and the basics of how the voice works down first and then just

experiment with it. All right. And that's good advice for every, everyone that's doing creative stuff. I'm a filmmaker and I do a podcast and, oh yeah, I've had my share of a failure. I'm not embarrassed to say it. That's my own chance. So yeah, yeah, that's excellent advice for all creatives. If you fail, learn from it, find a ways to work around it. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, inevitably with opera. Are there many operas in English? Because I think opera I'm thinking in Italian. Yeah. There are many operas in English. If you, even are just looking at sort of the,

because there's different periods in classical music. And because America is relatively new, the English language is relatively new compared to some of these other places where classical music and specifically opera originated. But if you just look at sort of the contemporary period, which tends to be more American influenced, more of an English influence to it, most of them are all English. So going back over 100 years, you know, you can find operas from the beginning of the 20th century up until now, currently. being written and the majority of them are going to be in English. So there are plenty of operas to choose from. One of my favorites that I was learning several years ago when I was a soprano before my voice dropped to a mezzo soprano. It's called the Old Maid and the Thief. And it's a

very funny opera, contemporary opera, that I highly recommend if you are afraid of getting into the operas and other languages, which you can find. English librettos for. I've read through the entire libretto of the marriage of figaro. You can find it in an English translation for it. I highly recommend reading through that as well. It is hilarious. And I read it to my mom on back and forth to rehearsals at a theater one year. And we both just cracking up the entire car ride reading through that. But if you want to, if you're afraid of getting into something like that, go for the English ones like something like the old maid and the thief. Cool. Cool.

All right. Is there anything I haven't asked about that you feel we should bring up for? I'd love to bring up my new song that I just released. It was called Legends and it's actually a collaboration with somebody from Australia. And he was originally from the UK, but he now lives in Australia. And we met because we're both members of the International Singer Songwriters Association. and we're now both award winners with the International Singer Songwriters Association. And so we started collaborating on this project back in May of this year. And it just came out on October 16th and we're very proud of it. And we just love what we created. And so far, the reviews on it from our fans, from critics have been just amazingly positive.

And we're so grateful for that. But yeah, that was the latest thing that I've done. done. Excellent. Excellent. Congratulations on that. So I'll have to give it a listen. Thank you. I've got nothing else right now, but I want to thank you for taking a few minutes and talk with me about all this. And if you're ever in Kansas City, let me know. Thank you. I actually have friends in Kansas City, so you never know. That's possible. But thank you so much for having me on. It's been great chatting with you. Yeah, absolutely. and to everyone at home, thank you for listen, and we will talk again soon.

Thank you. This podcast is Uncalled for, is hosted, produced and edited by myself, Mike Chernke. Our opening and closing music for this particular episode is Winter in the Woods Piano by Zite, S-I-G-H-T, is available at the free. music archive.org and license under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

International license. And normally this is where I would have the AI voice speaking but in accordance to my guest's wishes we will forego that and I'll just say that we have

merch that you can buy. You can go to cafepress.com slash uncalled for pod. and you can find your RAS stuff there T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, whatever you want

to buy so and I want to thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time