Photographer: OMAR CRUZ
It may have taken Emily Estefan 18 years to sing aloud, but she’s quickly making up for lost time. Now 22, she will make her concert debut Thursday night at Festival Miami and then, at the stroke of midnight, her first album will drop.
It’s a giant step for Estefan who – up until a few years ago – was a polished musician, but who had never sung, even to herself aloud.
“People don’t believe it when I tell them I didn’t sing until I was 18, but it’s true,” says Estefan, who is the daughter of Gloria Estefan, one of the world’s most famous singers.
“I was afraid to hear my own voice. My mother has such a unique sound that I felt afraid to sing, but once I got over it, and realized that I could walk in another direction, it was like shedding a skin,” she adds.
But growing up as the daughter of Gloria and Emilio Estefan, the famous music producer, Emily was immersed in music.
She was a veteran of world tours at the age of eight, impressing audiences with her drum and guitar solos on her mother’s world tours.
In high school, she started a punk band called “Sound Glass.” After high school, it was on to Berklee College of Music in Boston to pursue her dream of becoming a musician.
Well, that wasn’t Emily’s entire dream – her real dream involved singing, and, once day, when she was home for a school break, she finally pulled her mother aside and sang for her.
With that, Emily Estefan the singer was born, and one of her first projects was to release herself from everyone’s expectations – including her own – in a single swipe with a music video single entitled “F#ck To Be,” which takes square aim at, well, expectations.
Also, in 2014, she performed with her mother at the Hollywood Bowl and a year later, she performed one of her original songs in front of an estimated 100,000 people at the Miami Beach Centennial Concert.
But her Festival Miami performance, which is entitled, simply, “Emily Estefan – Festival Miami Debut” marks the first time she has commanded a stage to give a full-length concert performance.
“This concert has been in the planning a long time. I have a nine-piece band and I’m going to have them recreate the music that I did myself. It’s been a really fun, exciting process getting the music together,” Emily says.
Photographer: OMAR CRUZ
Although she’s covered songs such as “Where the Boys Are,” Emily is accomplished songwriter, so she is filling this concert with original songs from her new album, “Take Whatever You Want.” Songs on the album include “Ask Me To,” “Reigns (every night)” and, of course “F#CK To Be” – although the ‘clean’ version is on the album, so it’s anyone’s guess which she’ll perform.
Although she was famous from birth – Gloria Estefan wrote “Along Came You (A Song for Emily)” about her arrival, Emily admits to struggling with performance anxiety, which seems to stem, in part, from her struggle to accept that her family’s fame does help to pave her way.
“Performing in the Hollywood Bowl was tough because I was standing where people who I had spent my whole life admiring. I hadn’t done anything to deserve to be there. I want to live my life so that, by the end of it, I will have earned a little piece of the right to be on that stage,” says Emily.
Emily Estefan will make her Festival Miami debut Thursday, Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. at the UM Gusman Concert Hall, 1314 Miller Drive, Coral Gables, Fla., 33146. Call 305-284-4940, www.festivalmiami.com.
