Emma Johnson
Emma Johnson is one of a small number of clarinetists to have established a major career on the concert stage. She regularly appears as soloist, chamber player, and recitalist in a broad range of repertory standards by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Crusell, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Debussy, Copland, and Hindemith, and she also performs lighter works by Joplin, Gershwin, Leroy Anderson, and countless others. Johnson plays more than 40 concertos and her repertory also includes compositions of her own as well as a fair measure of other contemporary music by such composers as John Dankworth, John Barry, and Howard Blake. Johnson has toured across the U.K., U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia, and Africa and has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Barbican Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Johnson has also taken up conducting, leading such ensembles as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. She has made numerous recordings for ASV, Naxos, and other labels.
Emma Johnson was born in the London borough of Barnet on May 20, 1966. She began lessons on the clarinet at nine and from age 15 played in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Johnson won the prestigious BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 1984, and the following year debuted in the recording studio and at Barbican Hall, both in performances of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.
Johnson managed to continue her concert career on a limited basis as a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where she initially studied English. While there she took clarinet lessons from Jack Brymer and Sidney Fell. In 1987 John Dankworth wrote Suite for Emma for her, one of many major composers have written for her.
In 1991 Johnson won the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York City and later gave her recital debut at Carnegie Hall. Throughout the 1990s Johnson made a string of popular recordings for ASV, which included two encore discs, in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and the 1995 Sir Malcolm Arnold: The Complete Works for Clarinet.
In 1996 Johnson was awarded an MBE from the British government. She has remained busy in the new century on all fronts, appearing not only in regular concerts but at festivals like the Mostly Mozart at the Barbican, where in 2006 she performed the Mozart concerto. Among her more acclaimed recordings is the 2009 Naxos CD of Dankworth's Suite for Emma and sonatas by Bernstein and Copland.
Johnson has continued to earn acclaim for performances of traditional repertory; her 2012 recording of sonatas by Brahms, recorded like several other Johnson releases with pianist John Lenehan, was hailed by the Observer as "a landmark disc." She has also branched out into jazz and other vernacular genres, artfully mixed together on her 2016 release Clarinet Goes to Town. Johnson has performed and conducted workshops for children, sometimes using a musical dramatization of the Pied Piper story. The Times of London has called Johnson simply "Britain's favourite clarinettist."
© Robert Cummings, James Manheim /TiVo
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Emma Johnson / Voyage
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto; Concerto for Flute and Harp
Emma Johnson, William Bennett, Osian Ellis, English Chamber Orchestra, Raymond Leppard
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1985
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Songs of Celebration
Emma Johnson, The Choir of Gloucester Cathedral, Adrian Partington
Klassiek - Released by Nimbus Alliance on 2 sep. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vaughan Williams: Partita, 3 Vocalises, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, The Lark Ascending
Emma Johnson, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, The London Festival Orchestra, Ross Pople, Iona Brown
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jul. 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Crusell: Clarinet Concerto No. 2 / Weber: Concertino / Rossini: Introduction, Theme and Variations
Emma Johnson, English Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Groves
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clarinet Goes to Town
Emma Johnson, John Lenehan, Paul Clarvis
Tango - Released by Nimbus Alliance on 11 nov. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
English Fantasy: Music for Clarinet and Orchestra
Concertmuziek - Released by Nimbus Alliance on 11 aug. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Emma Johnson & Friends
Emma Johnson, Michael Thompson, Philip Gibbon, Chris West, Carducci String Quartet
Kamermuziek - Released by SOMM Recordings on 26 feb. 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Finzi: Clarinet Concerto; 5 Bagatelles / Stanford: Clarinet Concerto; 3 Intermezzi
Emma Johnson, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Groves
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto; Clarinet Quintet
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
BOTTESINI COLLECTION (The), Vol. 1
Jose Luis Garcia, Emma Johnson, Thomas Martin, English Chamber Orchestra, Andrew Litton
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 9 dec. 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Arnold: The Complete Works for Clarinet
Emma Johnson, English Chamber Orchestra, Ivor Bolton
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
COPLAND, A. / BERNSTEIN, L.: Clarinet Sonatas / DANKWORTH, J.: Suite for Emma / Picture of Jeannie (Johnson)
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 24 feb. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Essential Emma Johnson
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, Küffner & Strauss: Chamber Works
Kamermuziek - Released by SOMM Recordings on 4 jan. 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Weber: The 2 Clarinet Concertos; Concertino; Grand Duo Concertant
Emma Johnson, English Chamber Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 20 mei 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pastoral - British Clarinet Music
Emma Johnson, Judith Howarth, Malcolm Martineau
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Mozart Album
Emma Johnson, Contempo String Quartet, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Encores
Emma Johnson, Julius Drake, Skaila Kanga
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet - Zemlinsky: Clarinet Trio
Kamermuziek - Released by Nimbus Alliance on 1 mei 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Crusell, Kozeluch, Krommer: Clarinet Concertos
Emma Johnson, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Günther Herbig
Klassiek - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo