Hailing from Los Angeles, California, Emmanuel is a first generation musician from a working-class, immigrant family from Mexico. Aside from extensive training from masterclasses and workshops, he formally studied orchestral conducting at the Graduate Conducting Program at the Bard Conservatory of Music in Upstate New York. During his time at Bard, Emmanuel was also concurrently working on his Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as a bass trombonist. Before attending Bard, Emmanuel also had intensive orchestral, choral, and operatic conducting training at the Thornton School even as a bass trombone major.