Described as “one of the most multi-talented artists you will ever come across” by Grassrootsy Magazine, EMay is an award-winning songwriter, recording artist and performer. She is also an a/v producer, visual artist, teacher, writer and homesteading beekeeper.
EMay is most frequently compared to Alanis Morissette (whom she has studied with), Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and Janis Joplin. Voted a “West Virginia Wonder Woman” in 2021, EMay has been honored with several awards and grants for her art and music, such as a Heinz Endowments Pittsburgh Creativity Project award for her “many contributions to our cultural landscape”, New Music USA, and the Mid-Atlantic Songwriters’ Association.
As an artist, EMay has recorded 13 albums. Her debut studio album, Let Out Your Ghosts, was produced by multiple Grammy-award winner Jimmy Hoyson and features Marc Ford (The Black Crowes, Lucinda Williams) Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters, The Wallflowers), Michael Jerome (Better Than Ezra, Richard Thompson Trio) and Taras Prodaniuk (Richard Thompson Trio, Merle Haggard band). She has also lead experimental rock band The Moon My Twin, the doom-metal group Black Yo)))ga Meditation Ensemble, Turkish Folk project Kirik Hava, and acoustic trio Between Liberties. She appears on dozens of other artists’ recordings.
She is also a music producer, and runs a retreat-style straw-bale cabin recording studio, where she produces her own work and records other. She has studied recording arts with Riccardo Schultz (Pittsburgh Symphony) and Phillip Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker, Laura Veirs).
EMay’s has also performed extensively, solo, with B&E, AHYAME, The Sectionals, and as a session musician. She has performed alongside 10,000 Maniacs, Rusted Root, Dar Williams, Loudon Wainwright III, The Black Lilies; at TEDx, Stanford University, The Purple Fiddle. She is a long-time student of W. A. Matthieu, with many other notable teachers including Alanis Morisette, Jorma Kaukonnen, Natalie Goldberg, Allyson Grey, Alex Grey, Michael Azgour, Brenda Hillman, Zafira Dance Company, Nick Woolsey, and Cindy Chung; she carries certificates from The Himalayan Institute, Stanford CS, Carnegie Mellon and Dana Hall School.
After growing up in the Boston suburbs and spending many years in Pittsburgh, EMay now lives at Healthberry Farm where she produces retreat-style recording sessions, leads retreats, mentors aspiring artists, paints, keeps bees, gardens, writes, and wanders the mountainsides with her dogs.
For more on her non-musical adventures, visit erikamay.com.
