back to programme
| Morning |
|
|
| Afternoon |
|
|
| Evening |
|
|
Emma Johnson
Concert Programme
Mozart Variations K581
Ireland Fantasy Sonata
Weber@ Grand duo concertante
Interval
Bernstein Sonata
Messiaen: L'Abime des Oiseaux
Elgar: Canto populare
Chopin: Fanasy Impromptu
Dankworth: Suite for Emma
EMMA JOHNSON is one of the few clarinettists to have established a busy international career as a soloist. Emma performs across Europe, the USA and the Far East, as well as in Africa and Australia. In Britain she has achieved great popularity, regularly playing to sold-out concert halls. Her recent disc 'Voyage' for Universal Classics & Jazz went straight to number three in the UK Classical Charts. Emma's latest disc, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth (2006), includes the Clarinet Concertoand the Quintet.
Emma began to study the clarinet at the age of nine. In 1984 she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition televised throughout Europe and in 1991 was a winner of the Young Concert Artist Auditions in New York. She studied Music and English at Cambridge University and was recently the first woman to be awarded an honorary fellowship at Pembroke College. Emma has given masterclasses all over the world and was a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music. Emma was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 1996.
Emma Johnson has appeared with many leading orchestras including London Symphony, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, Hallé, Tokyo Philharmonic, Salzburg Camerata and Netherlands Philharmonic in repertoire which includes over forty different concertos.
A new development in Emma's career has seen her being invited not only to direct from the clarinet, but also to conduct orchestras; the most recent examples being a highly acclaimed concert tour with the London Mozart Players and her debut conducting the Royal Philharmonic. Emma is also in demand as a recitalist and chamber musician, collaborating with quartets such as the Takacs, Lindsay, Brodsky and Contempo. She is director of her own chamber ensemble, 'Emma Johnson and Friends', a versatile wind and string group.
Emma has sold well over a quarter of a million discs worldwide. Details of her recordings as well as her concert schedule are available on Emma's website www.emmajohnson.co.uk. Books of Emma's compositions and arrangements have been published by both Chester Music and Fabers.
A frequent broadcaster for the BBC and European Broadcasting Union on both radio and television, Emma's TV appearances have ranged from prime time chat shows to gala concerts with Cleo Laine and Yehudi Menuhin. Emma's radio appearances include 'Artist of the Week' on both BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM; she has also presented various feature programmes. The theme tune played by Emma for the Victorian Kitchen Garden series on BBC television became a popular hit in the UK.
As well as the traditional repertoire, Emma takes an interest in contemporary composers. Her recording of Michael Berkeley's challenging Clarinet Concerto received widespread critical acclaim. John Dankworth has written several jazz-inspired works for Emma including a clarinet concerto premiered at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She is currently collaborating on a new concerto with Will Todd.
Emma Johnson plays an instrument by the English clarinet maker Peter Eaton. She lives in London with her double bass playing husband, Chris West, and their young daughter, Georgina.
'…[Emma Johnson] walks onto a concert platform and suddenly transforms herself into an expressive instrument of sublime beauty' -
The Guardian
Andrew West
Andrew West has developed partnerships with many of the country's leading singers and instrumentalists.
He has given recitals and recorded with Emma Bell, Alice Coote, Lesley Garrett, James Gilchrist, Christopher Purves and Hakan Vramsmo, and appears regularly with Mark Padmore. Their concerts together have included Mark Padmore's debut Wigmore Hall recital, repeated at the Frick Collection in New York, and performances of the Six Songs from the Arabian as part of the South Bank's Henze Festival, and later on in Paris. Earlier this year they performed in the Tippett centenary festival at the Wigmore Hall. Last year's highlights included Aldeburgh Festival recitals with Christopher Purves, Robert Murray and Paul Silverthorne, and a CD recording of lieder by Strauss, Marx and Bruno Walter with Emma Bell. Andrew West returned to Aldeburgh for three concerts in June, performing a Russian programme with Neal Davies and Liwei Qin, a Shakespeare recital based on lesser-known songs with Ailish Tynan, James Oxley and Roderick Williams and the Tippett songs with Mark Wilde.
Andrew received the inaugural Gerald Moore Award for Accompanists, and subsequently gave many recitals with Ian Bostridge, Susan Gritton and Claire Rutter when all four were represented by Young Concert Artists' Trust. For several years he has acted as official accompanist to the Steans Institute for Singers at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and will return in July this year.
He is one of the artistic directors of the Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, now in its fourth year, which presents English song unfamiliar to local audiences as well as more traditional repertoire. This September Christopher Purves sang Finzi, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams; and Britten's opera Noye's Fludde was performed at Nuremberg Zoo. Andrew's partnership with flautist Emily Beynon led to their Hyperion recording of the complete works for flute and piano by the French composers Les Six, and they have also given trio recitals with cellist Paul Watkins at the Purcell Room and the BBC Chamber Music Proms. Andrew has worked with violinist Sarah Chang in Britain and Ireland, and performed with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras at many of the major European halls. His piano quartet Touchwood released their first CD, of works by Chausson and Saint-Saens, in 2000, and this was subsequently chosen as CD of the Month by the Daily Telegraph.
Andrew West won second prize at the Geneva International Piano Competition in 1990. He has since made solo tours of South Africa, South America and the United States, and has given numerous recitals at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall. He performed the solo part in Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques under Mark Wigglesworth at Snape Maltings.
Andrew read English at Clare College, Cambridge before studying under Christopher Elton and John Streets at the Royal Academy of Music. He was Pianist-in-residence at Lancaster University from 1993-99 and is now a professor of Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music.
*****************************************************
Frances Waters with Josephine Pickering
top
