About Emma
“Emma Wills is a luminous voice on the guitar— a concert artist of rare sincerity and imagination, she transforms every performance into a space of deep listening and connection. Her playing is expressive, integer, and fiercely honest—shaped by nuance, color, and an unshakable sense of authenticity. On classical, romantic, and baroque guitars, she draws audiences into sound worlds where music becomes soul, weaving lines that unite people through feeling rather than form. One of the most distinctive guitarists of her generation, she forges her own path with a signature style that is radiant, bold, and unmistakably her own.''
Emma Wills is a Belgian guitarist, active as a soloist, chamber musician, and creator, who performs in leading concert halls and festivals across Europe, including BOZAR Brussels, Concentus Moraviae (Czechia), Grand Manège Namur Concert Hall, the Ullapool Guitar Festival (United Kingdom), Barock bis Rock (Germany), Zuiderzee Museum (the Netherlands), Musique Antique Festival (Bruges), Musica Devina Festival, Music Chapel Queen Elisabeth Waterloo Festival, Walden Festival, Bach in de Stad, Festival Odegand, Chamber Music Days (Bruges), to name a few. She is known for her unique programmes, including her own arrangements, in which she situates the guitar (including historical instruments) within a broad musical landscape.
On 5 September 2025, Emma released her debut solo album, Serenades of Spain with the Antarctica Spring Records Label. In December 2025 she made her debut at the legendary Henry Le Bœuf Hall at BOZAR, performing her solo recital '4-7-8'.
Emma was recognized as a Promising Musician 2022 in the De Twintigers series on Belgium’s classical radio Klara VRT, and in the year after, she received the title of Laureate 2023 by the Belgian Foundation Vocatio for her work in reviving the Romantic guitar.
Since 2021 she is the Guitar Ambassador at the Belgian music instrument museum, Museum Vleeshuis, where she continues to breathe new life into original two hundred year old instruments. In the same year, the museum invited Emma for their project 'The Sound of the Vleeshuis' and later, in 2024, they invited Emma to record the Au Salon albumproject with the Et'cetera label, commissioned on behalf of Museum Vleeshuis, a recording using authentic instruments from their collection, inspired by mid‑19th century salon concerts in Antwerp (BE), featuring Emma playing the Marotel guitar (Mirecourt, c. 1820) from the museum’s collection, in duo with the pianist Thomas Boodts on the Conrad Graf pianoforte (Vienna, c. 1826).
In 2025, Emma released her debut solo album Serenades of Spain, with the Antarctica Records label, a Spanish inspired album that goes beyond clichés, with Baroque, Romantic, and classical guitar, both solo and in collaboration with soprano Fleur Strijbos (BE) and cellist Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde (CA). Within the first month, the album received extensive international airplay, including live interviews for WRR Dallas 101.1 FM (USA) and Klara VRT (BE). Serenades of Spain was featured on Spotify’s New Classical playlist, nominated for 'De Keuze van Klara' and has been praised as “a lively, atmospheric, and even infectious mosaic of the guitar in Spain’s musical imagination” (STRETTO, 2025), and ''she also grants herself the remarkable freedom to play different guitars—namely a baroque guitar, a romantic guitar, and a modern classical guitar—which color the whole like a series of varied landscapes, observed from the window of a train unlike any other.'' (Clic Musique Magazine France, 2025).
She is the guitarist of Duo Como (with accordeonist Sebastian Enriques), Duo Leora (with soprano Fleur Strijbos), plays the chitarra battente at the Delta Baroque Ensemble (dir. Adriaan Lauwers), collaborates with the Canadian cellist Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde, and pianoforte player Thomas Boodts. She has worked and performed with a wide range of artists such as An Pierlé, Brice Soniano, conductor Pascal Van Os, soprano Britt Truyts, the Virago Symphonic Orchestra, and narrator Lukas De Wolf in her original literary-musical project Witte Vlinders (based on Platero y yo - Juan Ramón Jiménez) that received a standing ovation at MoMeNT festival in Tongeren. Her collaborations extend to renowned organisations such as the IAWM Conference in Portland (USA), Muziektheater Transparant, the Big Bang Festival Europe, Ghent Festival of Flanders, Festival of Flanders Kempen, and Passa Porta. As a solo artist, she has performed at rare and evocative heritage venues including the Drongenhofkapel, the Wassenhove House, and the Castle of Gaasbeek.
Wills began guitar at the age of 8, completed her Master’s in Belgium with Roland Broux and Nico Couck, and in Scotland with Sasha Savaloni, Matthew McAllister and Allan Neave. She participated in masterclasses with Sean Shibe, Matthew Cochran, Paul Galbraith, Alberto Mesirca, Katrin Klingeberg, Stephanie Jones, Johan Fostier, Meng Su, Laura Young, and Rafael Aguirre.
