Émilie Girard-Charest is a cellist, composer, and improviser. Both as a soloist and as part of various ensembles, she has participated in more than sixty premieres and collaborated with numerous composers, including Malcolm Goldstein, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Graciela Paraskevaídis, Pascale Criton, and Thomas Nicholson. Her pieces have been performed by various ensembles, including Itinéraire, Quasar, Zukan, Continuum, Totem Contemporain, and Cairn, as well as in the NO HAY BANDA concert series. She performs regularly in concert in Canada, Europe, and South America.

She has several recordings to her credit, including Intimités (2022, Ambiances Magnétiques), Impermanence (with Violeta García, 2021, Inexhaustible Editions and Tour de Bras),  Enthousiasme viscéral (with Sergio Castrillón, 2019, Mikroclimat), Uncanny Valley (with Marc Vilanova, 2017, audiotalaia), Émilie préfère le chant (2016, Ambiances Magnétiques), Race with time (with Mart Soo, 2016, Improtest Records), Avec (2016, Kohlenstoff Records) and Musica in camera (Quatuor d’occasion, 2014, &records).

Émilie graduated from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with degrees in cello (class of Denis Brott) and composition (class of Michel Gonneville). She also holds a Master's degree in Contemporary Performance and Composition (CoPeCo) from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She completed her doctorate at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon and the Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Étienne under the supervision of Philippe Hurel and Laurent Pottier. Since 2023, she has been a professor of music culture at the CNSMD in Lyon.

She is the recipient of the Montreal Conservatory of Music Foundation Career Development Grant (2014), the Fernand Lindsay European Composition Prize (2015), and the Canada Council for the Arts Robert Fleming Prize (2019).