EMMA Johnson reigns supreme as the nation's foremost clarinet player.

One of the few clarinettists to have established a glittering career as a solo performer which has taken her to major European, American and Asian venues as well as to Africa and Australasia, she is one of the UK’s biggest selling classical artists, having sold well over half a million albums worldwide.

Her recent - and much lauded - recording of sonatas by Brahms and Mendelssohn with John Lenehan follows on from her chart topping successes: Voyage and The Mozart Album on the Universal label; her recording of the Finzi Concerto, which was nominated for a Gramophone Award and Pastoral, chosen as CD of the Year by BBC Music Magazine.

Emma - whose career was kick-started at the age of 17 by winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year back in 1984 - has her versatile fingers in many musical pies: director of Emma Johnson and Friends, an exciting collaboration with composer Jonathan Dove that has seen Emma working with children in workshops and performances throughout the UK; her Clarinet Goes to Town, an entertaining programme of music tracing the origins of traditional jazz which has been a hit with audiences; and she arranges music for the clarinet.

On Saturday, April 1 (7.30pm), Emma returns to Kendal, as soloist with the Lakeland Sinfonia at Kendal Leisure Centre's Westmorland Hall in the penultimate concert of another highly acclaimed Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society series.

Emma will perform Weber’s Second Clarinet Concerto which shows off the technical possibilities of the clarinet to the full with its huge leaps, brilliant scale passages, the rich tone and poetry of the slow movement and the glittery virtuosity of the finale.

The sinfonia programme also includes Elgar’s Sospiri, which elegantly sets a moment of English calm before the brilliance of the Weber concerto and Paul Reade's The Victorian Kitchen Garden will provide a trip down memory lane for many. Paul's music won the 1991 Ivor Novello award for best TV theme music; Emma Johnson was soloist in the accompanying music for the BBC series.

Another featured piece will be The Banks of Green Willow, by George Butterworth, who was an Oxford friend of Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp and together they collected many hundreds of folk songs from around the British Isles.

George was killed in the trenches in 1916 at the Somme and never fulfilled his huge potential as a composer.

Saturday's concert closes with music of vigour and excitement - Haydn’s Symphony no 104, the last of the 12 composed during his two visits to London.

The much awaited performance will be conducted by Philip Ellis, who has worked with most of the UK’s major orchestras, particularly for the Hallé, conducting and introducing the majority of the eminent ensemble's concerts for schools and families as well as full symphony performances during the Halle's main seasons at the Bridgewater Hall and on tour.

Philip is also well known on the ballet scene wielding the baton for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Staatskapelle Dresden, La Scala , Paris and Turin, and he's worked extensively with Lesley Garrett as her music director for many years.

Tickets are available at www.lakelandsinfonia.org.uk or on 0333-666-3366.