Emma Wright Mundella (30 April 1858 – 20 February 1896) was an English composer and arranger, recital pianist, church organist, choral conductor, teacher of music and hymnal editor.

Though her music is now seldom heard, her lasting achievement was her well-regarded editorship of The Day School Hymnbook, the expanded edition of which was published shortly after her early death and which brought her posthumously into national prominence.

[5] Her uncle was Anthony John Mundella, a Liberal statesman and a member of William Ewart Gladstone's Cabinet.

[10] Emma Mundella's general education was at the non-sectarian school attached to the Unitarian High Pavement Chapel in Nottingham.

[14] After a year, in November 1880, she was invited to take the post of Director of Music Teaching at the newly opened Wimbledon High School for Girls.

[16] She also carried out duties as an organist at a London church, taught a large number of private pupils, delivered popular lectures on the great musical composers and gathered together a women’s choir which she conducted.

Evidence exists in the Edvard Grieg archives that she wrote to him prior to her 1884 recital to seek assistance on the tempo of the Norwegischer Brautzug (the Norwegian Bridal Procession), asking him the speed at which he intended it should be played.

As a composer as well as a teacher Emma Mundella found that there was a lack of suitable progressive music for young students and she did her best to help fill this gap.

[11][14] At least until the end of the Second World War (her copyright expired in 1946) a number of her works, including particularly a setting of William Shakespeare's Ye Spotted Snakes and an instrumental trio, continued to sell and be performed publicly.

She wrote new music for 15 existing hymns and invited some of her composer friends, such as John Stainer, Hubert Parry and Frederick Bridge, to contribute.

In its review of this second edition The Musical Times commented: The wide reading and the musical knowledge it displays are remarkable; here are old German, French, and English tunes, and many too-much neglected tunes of the English middle period ... the special contributions of living composers show how many of her friends took a sincere interest in the success of the work ...

She remained single, sharing rooms in Bloomsbury, London with her unmarried younger brother, the Manchester Guardian journalist and education reformer, Anthony John Mundella (Junior).