Music in Dumfries presents: Emma Johnson & Gregory Drott

About the event

Emma Johnson

Emma Johnson is one of the few clarinettists to have established a career as a solo performer. Emma grew up in London and her career was launched when at the age of 17 she won BBC Young Musician of the Year followed by the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York. She studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge before embarking on music full time and since then she has performed all over the world.

Johnson has made 30 recordings to date; tracks from her recent album with the BBC Concert Orchestra, English Fantasy, have been streamed 5 million times on Spotify. Voyage and The Mozart Album on the Universal label were also classical chart-topping successes and Johnson’s CD of Brahms sonatas with John Lenehan was described as “definitive” in The Observer, whilst her recording of Stanford and Finzi Concertos was nominated for a Gramophone Award.

Emma Johnson is also a composer; books of her arrangements and compositions have been published by Chesters, Fabers and Encore Publications. Songs of Celebration, Johnson’s composition for clarinet and choir, has recently been performed in Dublin, London and Tokyo and she has written a clarinet concerto Tree of Life which has numerous performances planned with her hand-picked Orchestra For the Environment. A series of new solo clarinet pieces has been published by Queen’s Temple Publishing.

In 2020 Emma Johnson was awarded the Cobbett Medal for distinguished services to chamber music from the Musicians’ Company Guild in the City of London. She loves to collaborate with other musicians and also directs her own ensemble, Emma Johnson and Friends, whose recent live recording of the Schubert Octet was critically acclaimed.

Working with artists as diverse as Sir Yehudi Menuhin and Dame Cleo Laine, Emma is known for her eclectic programming; amongst the programmes she offers are Tales of Vienna and Clarinet Goes to Town.

Emma Johnson’s TV appearances range from a recital for Sky Arts TV to gala concerts including a recent televised Prom. Emma played the popular theme for The Victorian Kitchen Garden on BBC TV (winning a Novello Award). Videos of her performances and masterclasses can be seen on her YouTube channel.

Her radio work includes Artist of the Week for both BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM as well as for radio stations around the world and she has been a featured guest on programmes such as Woman’s Hour and World at One. Her broadcasts about the composer Finzi and the poet Milton were both chosen as Pick of the Week and she is often invited to give talks, including recently Comedy Classical, an exploration of humour in music, for The Arts Society.

Emma has given masterclasses throughout the world and she runs her own charity, the Emma Johnson Music Foundation, which has entertained thousands of UK children with her  Instrument Stories about the power of music.

Emma has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras in repertoire which includes all the major clarinet works as well as pieces written especially for her by Sir John Dankworth, Will Todd, Patrick Hawes, Matthew Taylor and Sir Michael Berkeley amongst others.

Emma was the first woman to be made an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge and in 2017 the college commissioned a portrait of her.

She enjoys running and is also a keen bird watcher. She is a patron of the Ronald Mcdonald House Charities.

She was honoured by the Queen with an M.B.E. in 1996.

Emma plays an instrument made by the English clarinet maker, Peter Eaton.

“Emma Johnson has realised what lies at the heart of music making when it is at its best: she does not just perform but uses the music to communicate something wonderful"

Gregory Drott

Gregory Drott is a concert pianist, conductor, organist, composer and academic. He was a prize-winning organ and piano student at both the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. He holds degrees in musicology and performance from the universities of London and Cambridge. Formerly Assisting Organist to the Choir of King’s College Cambridge and Director of Music at Pembroke College Cambridge, Gregory combines his freelance activities in the U.K. and abroad with research and undergraduate teaching at Cambridge.  He is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, an alumnus of the Georg Solti Accademia for Répétiteurs and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

Date

Sunday 1st November 

Time

7:30pm

Location

The Bridge, Dumfries, DG2 0LL

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