Emma Cecilia Thursby (February 21, 1845 – July 4, 1931) was an American singer popular in Europe and the United States.

In 1874, she drew acclaim performing in concerts with Patrick Gilmore's 22nd Regiment Band at venues including the Philadelphia Academy of Music.

For example, a reviewer for the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune wrote in December 1880: "Thursby has a tremolo according to some critics, but it is the kind of a tremolo that is setting all musical people in Europe wild with admiration of the superior quality and sweetness of her voice, and the superbly artistic style of her execution of the silvery notes of her wonderful voice".

Alfred A. Wheeler in The Overland Monthly (July 1883) compares her voice unfavourably to Mrs Cole's even-toned "contralto voice of uncommon strength, richness, and compass" noting that "It is the absence of this same power of sustaining the evenness of tone, and the substitution for it of a disagreeable vibrato, which is the most serious drawback to the sweetness and dexterity of Miss Thursby’s light soprano".

A reviewer for The Salt Lake Tribune (June 1891) noted that her "hop-skip-and-jump, twittering, chirping, tremolo style, was disappointing".

In 1875, she performed in concert with Hans von Bülow at Chickering Hall, and in the following year, appeared with Mark Twain in a series of programs for the Redpath Lyceum.