Emma Williams

Emma Williams studied with Susan Milan and David Butt at the Royal College of Music and with the late Alain Marion in Paris. She has received many awards including a Making Music award from the National Federation of Music Societies, the Prince's Trust and the Leopold de Rothschild Trust. She was awarded a Junior Fellowship at the RCM in 2001.

As a chamber musician and soloist she has performed throughout Britain as well as internationally (Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, Kuwait and Dubai) including recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall (Ensemble Lumière & YCAT Finalist), BBC Radio 3 (Young Artist) and South Bank Centre (Purcell Room). She regularly gives concerts with Richard Shaw (piano) and with Hugh Webb (harp).

Emma has recorded for BBC2 television, BBC Radio 3, Cramer Music (Classic Experience, Classic Experience Encores, Harlequin and Small Talk) and for the Metronome, Métier, Dutton and Deux-Elles labels. She is a member of the chamber group Ensemble Lumière with whom she has recorded a CD of wind and piano chamber music by Cecilia McDowall. The Daily Telegraph described the Ensemble’s Wigmore Hall performance as dazzling. In the contemporary field, Emma has premiered Elena Firsova’s trio The Scent of Absence at the memorial concert for Prokofiev’s son, Malcolm Arnold’s Sonata and Nicholas Sackman’s Quartet .  

Emma has worked with the Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Festival Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, and English Symphony Orchestra. Her theatre work includes the National Theatre (His Dark Materials), Independent Opera (La Scala di Seta), Opera Genesis (ROH2), Opera Interludes (Die Zauberflöte, La Traviata) and Stanley Hall Opera (Le Nozze di Figaro, Falstaff, La Cenerentola, La Pietra del Paragone, Don Pasquale). She is on the extra work lists for the Northern Sinfonia, Halle, Royal Scottish National and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras.

Her duo (with pianist Richard Shaw) has built a reputation for dynamic and imaginative programming presented in a relaxed but informative style. Their programmes are often enriched with music for piano solo, piccolo and alto flute. In Pan Magazine, the pianist Piers Lane described Emma's "mature, confident playing, projected with authority...full of musical understanding and identification" and with a "fresh, communicative passion".

As well as her busy performing career Emma runs the wind chamber music course at Charterhouse Summer School, the flute course at Hawkwood College (Gloucestershire) and teaches at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music, London.

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