Emma Johnson is one of the few clarinettists to have established an international career as a soloist. She has performed across Europe, the USA and the Far East, as well as in Africa and Australia. Emma grew up in London and in 1984 she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and was a medal winner in the Eurovision Young Musician televised throughout Europe. Later she was to be a winner of the Young Concert Artist Auditions in New York. These competitions launched Emma´s musical career whilst she was still at school, but she decided to study Music and English at Cambridge University before embarking full-time on musical life.

Emma Johnson has appeared as soloist with many leading orchestras in repertoire which includes over forty different concertos. A new development has seen her not only directing from the clarinet, but also conducting orchestras such as the London Mozart Players and the Royal Philharmonic. She is also much in demand as a recitalist and chamber musician. Emma has achieved great success as a recording artist with over 20 discs to her name. Her Finzi Concerto CD was nominated for a Gramophone Award and Pastoral was a CD of the year in the BBC Music Magazine.  TV appearances have ranged from prime time chat shows to gala concerts with Cleo Laine and Yehudi Menuhin. Radio appearances include Artist of the Week on both BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. She enjoys writing about music and has presented various feature programmes, including most recently a Radio 4 broadcast about the composer, Gerald Finzi.  

Emma was recently the first woman to be made an honorary fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge and in 1996 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen´s Birthday Honours List for services to music.

In a performing career spanning more than 25 years, John Lenehan’s performances and recordings have been acclaimed throughout the world.  He has made more than sixty CDs - most recently three discs for Sony of minimalist piano works and John Ireland´s piano music. Other solo recordings include a disc of Erik Satie and a Gramophone award-winning recording  of Michael Nyman’s Piano Concerto. He is also active as a composer and has written and arranged for Angelika Kirchschlager, Nigel Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber, Tasmin Little and Emma Johnson and the King of Thailand.

Recent performances have included Mozart and Shostakovich concerti with the renowned Sinfinia Varsovia at the Evian Festival and Beethoven with the Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai. Recordings due for release in 2009 include sonata discs with Emma Johnson (Naxos) and Tasmin Little (BIS).