Joanna Nicholson, Director
Joanna graduated from the Royal College of Music in 1992 as an Exhibition Scholar, and has since pursued a lively career as a freelance clarinettist. Her work combines performing and education. She performs extensively with numerous major UK orchestras and ensembles, including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the orchestras of Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, the Ulster Orchestra and the Hebrides Ensemble. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with the BBC SSO at the Albert Hall's famous Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in London, and with the BT Scottish Ensemble. She regularly gives solo and chamber music recitals. In Janaury 2007 she was invited to join Yiddish Song Project, a swing klezmer trio.
Joanna has worked on music and arts education projects since 1990, with major organisations including the London Sinfonietta, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, North Ayrshire Council, the BBC, Pied Piper and Capability Scotland. She gave a large number of performances and workshops in community and special needs environments for Sir Yehudi Menuhin's "Live Music Now!" scheme, which takes music out of the concert hall and into people's everyday lives.
Joanna has written and performed incidental music for several plays and short films. In 2001 she created the score for "In Situ", the contemporary dance work written for the opening of Scotland's new national centre for dance, Dancebase. The piece was awarded a Herald Angel at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival.
She is an advisory teacher of clarinet at Aberdeen City Music School, a mentor for Live Music Now, and a guest examiner for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Napier University.
For the past year she has been part of Aberdeenshire Council's Kodaly Music Instructor team, and recently co-authored the Course of Study document for Kodaly delivery in Aberdeenshire primary schools. Very recently she has been appointed as a Bookstart Rhymetime Champion.
"quicksilver" The Herald, August 2008 "superb" The Scotsman, August 2007