Emma Johnson, one of Britain’s best loved musicians, 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 in venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw, the Louvre and the Barbican. She returns to us to play two wonderful Clarinet Quintets – the famous Quintet by Brahms, and the astonishing Quintet by Samuel Coleridge- Taylor, a work of remarkable subtlety
and sophistication, rhythmically exuberant and complex, music that deserves to be better known.

The Harpham String Quartet is steadily becoming regarded as a formidable new talent. Last year they were selected as Park Lane Group Young Artists and performed at the opening night of the 2008 New Year Series at the Purcell Room.

They open our concert with Puccini’s exquisite poem for string quartet, Chrysanthemums.