Emily Pailthorpe

With her unique vocal sound and compelling musicianship, oboist Emily Pailthorpe has won a large following amongst fellow musicians and concertgoers worldwide. Her versatile career has shown her equally at home as a soloist, orchestral principal, chamber musician, session artist and sought-after teacher.

Emily’s career was launched at the age of 17 when she became the youngest artist ever to win the Fernand Gillet International Oboe Competition. Playing the Vaughan Williams concerto, she was hailed by the judges as “the Jacqueline du Pré of the oboe”. Emily went on to make her acclaimed concerto debut playing the Strauss Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra, her recital debut in London’s Wigmore Hall.

Emily attended the Purcell School of Music and the Interlochen Arts Academy where she became a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. She is a graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School of Music, where she won the concerto competition and the prize for most valued orchestral musician. Her playing has inspired many composers to write for her, including Paul Patterson, who wrote his Phoenix Concerto for her, and Richard Blackford, who wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature for her. Emily gave both the world premiere and US premiere performances of both works.

In addition to her performances as soloist and chamber musician, Emily appears regularly as guest principal oboe with many orchestras, notably the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC Scottish, Welsh National Opera, Baltimore Symphony, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, and English National Opera. A sought-after session artist, Emily features on the soundtracks of many films including Jane Eyre, Harry Potter and The Theory of Everything. She can be heard regularly on American National Public Radio, Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 and she has featured as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’.

Emily is a founder member and the oboist of the acclaimed London Conchord Ensemble, which celebrated its tenth anniversary with a performance at the BBC Proms Chamber Music Series. The ensemble performs in Europe and America with recent engagements at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Brussels Palais des Beaux Arts, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, BBC Wigmore Lunchtime Series and Washington’s Library of Congress. Emily is Artistic Director of Conchord’s chamber music festival, the Conchord Festival. Drawing upon her deep interest in the relationship between literature and music she has brought guests including Simon Callow, Dame Felicity Lott, Michael Berkeley and Juliet Stevenson to collaborate with the ensemble.

As part of the BBC celebrations to mark International Women’s Day 2016, Emily was invited to perform Thea Musgrave’s Helios Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Her recordings – amongst them English oboe concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra And the Strauss Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – have received many accolades. Her recording of the Bach Oboe d’Amore Concerto became Classic FM’s CD of the month.

A native of Northfield MN, Emily is thrilled to be returning to St Paul to perform for an audience including friends and family.