Emily Newton

The Pennington United Methodist Church continues its year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of Methodism in its community with a recital on September 14 at 3 p.m. by opera singer Emily Newton. The soprano is a close family friend of one of the church’s members, and gave a concert at the church in 2016.

Pianist Joshua Rupley, a colleague of Newton at the University of Augsburg, Germany, will accompany her. The event will benefit the church’s mission projects with a free will offering. A reception will follow the concert.

Newton grew up along the rural Texas coast. She studied jazz arranging and aspired to be a jazz singer. But professors at North Texas State University convinced her to sing opera after hearing her voice.

Newton sang a Mozart operatic role with the New Jersey Opera Theater in Princeton several years ago. Since then, she has starred in continental Europe’s premiere of the opera Anna Nicole. She is a member of the Nuremberg State Theater, and has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Vienna State Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera New Jersey, and other companies. Newton teaches voice at the University of Augsburg, and has given workshops and master classes at Boston University, the University of Miami, Rice University, and elsewhere.

The church is located at 60 South Main Street in Pennington. For more information, visit pumcnj.com.