EMMA JOHNSON

THURSDAY 24th FEBRUARY 2011

Inimitable Emma!

It must be about ten years since I last heard clarinettist Emma Johnson in concert, but she has spent most of the intervening years touring and perfecting the presentation of her solo performance. From the very start of her visit to Nairn, her effervescent personality won over the capacity audience, and soon her ‘heart and soul’ approach to the music was thrilling us all. Living the music to the max, inhabiting every tune she played and getting it across to her public with the presence of an actor or a dancer, she drew the general audience in to a programme, which ranged from Bernstein to Steve Reich, Copland to Gershwin. The American theme embraced composers who had sought refuge in America, even if like Dvorak and Rachmaninoff they would much rather have been at home. Although he composed beautifully for clarinet in his symphonies and in music for wind ensemble, sadly the Czech master produced no music for solo clarinet, however the Sonatina in G major for violin and piano proved a successful vehicle for clarinet and piano.

Swapping to the A clarinet, Emma presented a beautifully nuanced performance of another arrangement, this time of the famous Vocalise by that other reluctant American tourist Sergei Rachmaninoff. Her breath control in this sustained piece was masterly, and she produced a stunning pianissimo. The first half concluded with an actual clarinet piece by an actual American, the Clarinet Sonata by Aaron Copland. It is surprising that this atmospheric and evocative piece isn’t more widely known, but Emma’s advocacy of it will certainly work in its favour. Her able accompanist here and throughout the evening was the gifted John Lenehan, whose sympathetic playing was a major element in the evening’s success.

For the second half Emma had slipped into a scalloped sequin number to swing into a sequence of lollipops and contemporary classics. Two items from the late Johnny Dankworth’s Suite for Emma proved mellow and piquant, while for me the highlight of the whole concert was to my great surprise the seriously funky New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich. Live Emma joined multi-tracked pre-recorded Emma for a work of stunning inventiveness and toe-tappingly insistent rhythms. The jokey Bedtime Stories by Tom Johnson were followed by two light classics, Alec Templeton’s Bach goes to Town and To a Wild Rose by Edward Macdowell, and the printed programme concluded with three Scenes from Bernstein’s West Side Story, arrangements which showed off perfectly Emma’s sweet tone and impressive technique. The latter was also to the fore in a swirlingly brilliant account of Gershwin’s I got Rhythm.

This was an impressive performance package, with Emma’s lovely and expressive playing dramatically communicated to the audience and linked by chat of an impressive eloquence. Meanwhile, upstairs in the Community Centre a series of exquisitely nostalgic ink drawings by Chloe Furze recalled the glory days of the Nairn Performing Arts Guild at Clifton House, on sale to raise money for the Highland Hospice – the perfect coda for a highly enjoyable musical evening.