Janet Hilton
Clarinet
During a distinguished international career as a leading British clarinettist, after studies in Manchester and Vienna, Janet Hilton has appeared with most major British orchestras, at festivals including Edinburgh, Cheltenham and the BBC Promenade Concerts, and in many European countries, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Janet has created a substantial discography, having recorded much of the clarinet repertoire for Chandos, with other CDs on the EMI, BBC, ASV and Clarinet Classics labels. Her recorded repertoire includes all the clarinet works by Weber, the Sonatas and Quintet by Brahms, the Mozart Quintet and Kegelstatt Trio, the Clarinet Quintet by Sir Arthur Bliss and other chamber works and music for clarinet and piano, concertos by Nielsen, Copland, Stanford, Malcolm Arnold, Finzi and four contemporary British concertos that were composed for her.
She had a long association on record and in the concert hall with the Lindsay String Quartet and has also recorded with Peter Frankl, Nobuko Imai and Keith Swallow, and among orchestras, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Neeme Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Mathias Bamert, the Ulster Orchestra with Vernon Handley, Bournemouth Sinfonietta with Norman del Mar and BBC Scottish Symphony with Rumon Gamba. Naxos has published her recording of the three clarinet sonatas by Max Reger with pianist Jakob Fichert and her latest recording in 2016 is Flying Solo, a programme of music for unaccompanied clarinet, on the Clarinet and Saxophone Classics label.
In 1998, ABC Classic FM in Australia devoted a programme to Janet Hilton’s recordings in its series Great Performers .
Also a leading international teacher, Janet Hilton was Head of Woodwind and professor of clarinet at the Birmingham Conservatoire and then for 12 years at the Royal College of Music, stepping down in 2010, although she continues to teach there. This year she is making her third visit to Australia for masterclasses in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. Other recent tours have taken her to Singapore and Hong Kong, in Europe to Paris, Vienna, Poland and Norway and, regularly to the University of North Carolina and other American universities. She has been a juror on international competitions in England, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Canada.