ClarksonEmilyCross Classical Academy will present Emily Clarkson in a Harp concert Monday, January 18 at 8:30 a.m. at the Union Presbyterian Church.   This event is open to the public to attend.

At her first piano lesson at the age of three, Emily Clarkson discovered something that would quickly become a predominating fascination: music. After years of asking to play the harp, that dream also became a reality and has become a lifelong passion. Born and raised in Brownwood, Texas, she received her undergraduate degree from Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, with a major in Harp Performance and minors in Piano and German, and received her Master of Music degree in Harp Performance from the University of Michigan in December of 2015.

She was a finalist in the Anne Adams Awards national harp competition in 2014, and in 2013 she was a winner of the Ball State Undergraduate Concerto Competition, performing the first movement of the Gliere Concerto for Harp with the Ball State Symphony Orchestra. In 2012 she won first prize in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Undergraduate Harp Competition, and in 2011 she won first prize in the Jan Pennington National Harp Scholarship Competition. Other awards and honors include the Kathrin Fouse Award and the Salzedo Prize by the American Harp Society and being named a Young Master by the Texas Commission on the Arts. She has performed as a member of the University of Michigan University Symphony Orchestra and University Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ball State Symphony Orchestra, Harp Ensemble, and Wind Ensemble and the Texas All State Symphony Orchestra.

Cross Classical Academy is a Christian, Classical, University-Model School® in Brownwood, TX.  The purpose of Cross Classical Academy is to invest in the Kingdom of God by partnering with parents as they raise a generation to love the Lord with their whole heart and to be Christ-like leaders in their homes, churches, communities and the world.