Lively line-up of February music

As well as award-winning clarinettist, Emma Johnson, the concert series will include a performance by the Brodsky String Quartet this month.

Emma Johnson will perform in the town for the first time when she comes to the Spa Centre on February 15 as part of Music in the Round.

The 3pm concert will feature pianist John Lenehan and centre around Brahms’s Sonata in F minor Opus 120 No 1 and Saint-Saens’s Sonata in E flat Opus 167.

Emma has been hailed as Britain’s favourite clarinettist and was awarded BBC’s Young Musician of the Year in 1984 and an MBE in 1996.

She will join John Lenehan to host workshops at Kingsley and Warwick School from February 12 as part of the ongoing music series.

And in the next stage of concerts, the following week, Leamington Music will welcome the Brodsky quartet to play an unusual standing evening performance at the Pump Room.

The concert on February 20 will include Schubert’s dramatic Quartettsatz and Beethoven’s Quartet in C sharp minor Opus 131.

Formed by teenagers in Cleveland in 1972, the quartet has collaborated with Elvis Costello, Bjork, Sting and Paul McCartney.

In 1998 the quartet’s 40-year career was marked with the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for innovative programming.

The concert is the fifth of the monthly series of International String Quartets at the Pump Room. The series ends on March 20.

Tickets for Emma Johnson’s performance cost between £17.50 and £12.50, with £1 standby for students.

Tickets are available from the town hall box office at royalspacentreandtownhall or via 01926 334418.