Emily Summerhays

For those of you who know me, thanks for your support! For those who don't, you are now my friend and so thanks for you support! I'm Emily and here's some quick background on me. I love music and it has always been central to my life experience from an early age.  I grew up listening to my angel mama sing with pipes I could only dream of and singing in a trio with her and my awesome big sis at local church meetings and events. 

I continued singing in high school choirs and along the way discovered my love for Musical Theatre.  This love lead me to pursue and receive a Bachelors Degree in Music/Dance/Theatre from Brigham Young University. While there I had the chance to perform and work with some amazingly talented peers and teachers and learned so much from my experience in that program.  

While at BYU I met and married my stud of a husband Daniel. He has an amazing ability to put a little white ball in a hole and quickly made a career out of it playing golf on the PGA tour.  This journey combined with my huge desire to be a stay at home mom lead me to put my music books on the top shelf for a bit. Now I say "stay at home mom" but nothing could be further from the truth. My husband's career lead us on a journey that included thousands of miles in a motorhome, on planes and in cars all over the world, into more hotel rooms than you could imagine and into the lives of so many incredible people from many divers backgrounds. So while these years on the road may have felt like pushing pause on my music, I grew so much as a person, and wouldn't have traded those experiences for anything. 

During these years with my littles in tow, I still had opportunities to perform in various productions, help mentor young performers through teaching and directing, and started dabbling in some song writing.  I have gained so much joy sharing music with my kids and husband. Kitchen dance parties are a regular occurrence at the Summerhays house and someday I want to create an album entitled "Mom Songs" highlighting such tracks as "The Poop Rap" and "It's Time to Brush Your Teeth". Instant classics for sure!! 

In 2020, a perfect storm seemed to clear out time for my song writing to really start becoming a thing. My mama passed away early that year from breast cancer, the world shut down for Covid-19, and my youngest started all day school. This left me home alone, grieving the loss of my mom and processing the loss of normalcy with the rest of the world. My first coping strategy was chocolate covered almonds from Costco, but I quickly realized this was not a good long term fix:) so I went to God and my piano. I found myself spending hours playing and singing and finding solace and joy there.  It became a way of helping me connect with the God and feel Him in my life. I felt impressed that I needed to start sharing my music with my family and friends, many who I knew were struggling and searching for joy just like I was. I decided to start an Instagram page specifically for my music and started posting almost weekly. I have definitely gained way more from this than anyone who listened, but I started getting feedback that the music was connecting with my friends and family as well.  I became convinced that in this crazy world of so much division, stress and fear, God needed anyone who could, to put light and positivity out in the world in any way possible. I felt that call and still feel it. That's why I'm ignoring the pile of laundry next to me (well one reason:)) to write this bio. Not because there is anything extraordinary about me, but because music is one way I can try to put His light out into the world.