
EMRY GHILL
Emmanuel Guillaume Gerald (Born 5 November 1986) known as Emry Ghill is a singer-songwriter currently living in Belgium.
Emry Ghill was born in Tours, France. He grows up in Blois where he follows classical singing lessons at 11 and learns piano by himself. At 17, he returns to his hometown to start English literature studies, that he will finish with a memoir on Charles Dickens, written between Lille and London, where he spends most of his time.
In 2007, Emry gets several student jobs before dropping everything to settle down in Brussels, Belgium. There, he is introduced to AMAURY GHEYSENS, his friend and guitarist ever since. Together, they are part of a cover band called Bliss that performs in the bars. The duet leaves the band when Emry wishes to work on his own compositions.
In 2010, he joins singer Kylian’n in France to contribute to the ARRACH’TOUR with Guillaume Segovia.
In 2014, on his way back from San Francisco, Emry Ghill has a plane accident causing him irreversible tinnitus and compromising his career as a singer. After re-education sessions, he decides to keep up singing and composing, inspired by pop and jazz artists like Jack Johnson, Tina Dico, Jesse Harris, Kt Tunstall, Jamie Cullum and Norah Jones. One particularity in his voice is the use of blue notes, which are sung slightly at a different pitch from standard for expressive purposes, usually altered between a quatertone and a semitone .
In 2018, he meets Silvano Macaluso with who he plans to record his first album.
In 2019, Emry Ghill and Amaury Gheysens post videos of covers on social medias and are reunited with Silvano Macaluso to make their first album at HEMISPHERE MUSIC STUDIO, in Belgium. The trio records it in four days, revealing it as intimate, soul, pop, folk and mainly created around the guitar.
In March 2020, the album Shadows goes out on every streaming platforms. It tells the story of the singer’s past's shadows, whether it is people, moments or emotions that punctuated his life between France and Belgium.
The album’s visuals are realised by photographer and friend LETIZIA MARQUEZ SANTO, illustrating the idea that there is no light without shadows and that looking behind enables you to remember where you come from and learn from your mistakes.
The same month, he is noticed for his participation in Silva’s cover of WE ARE THE WORLD with 60 other Belgian confined artists during the coronavirus crisis.
As his career is starting over in Belgium and France, Emry learns in July 2022 he has the same genetic disease as his mother, a myopathy FSHD, which touches every superior muscles of the body and the abdomen. He's therefore surrounded by many specialists but alors by experts like Adeline Toniutti (Star Academy 2022) who helps him working on his technique to limit the impact of the disease on his breath and voice. She becomes his personal coach.
Emry Ghill claims to be an agnostic. He supports the cause of the intersex community (which he refers to in the songs Shadow Play and These Things Could Happen) and the research against myopathy, touching his mother. He has been living in Brussels since 2007 and PACSed since 2016. He is the godfather of his guitarist’s daughter, Lea, and a little boy named Elliot.