"In the hands of Emily Burridge, this instrument becomes a voice for her personal experiences, her emotions, and her thoughts as she amalgamates a variety of rhythms, sounds, backing performers, and instruments. "

Born in the UK, Emily was classically trained from the age of five and was awarded a scholarship to the specialist music school Wells Cathedral School and a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where she was further awarded the Helen Just concerto prize. From a young age she displayed a talent for improvising and over the years she has carved a niche and developed a reputation for working outside of the usual association with the 'cello as a classical instrument. She has produced four of her own CD productions: "Earth Songs" - published by a German independent in 1994 "Footsteps in the Sand" - was produced after having been awarded a cultural grant which enabled Emily to research folk music in the North East of Brazil and employ Brazilian musicians."Bridge between Worlds" - an orchestral work that features the Xavante traditional songs "In her compositions, Emily is capable of gathering, in a truly spontaneous way, elements derived from her Classical upbringing, together with those coming from the ethnic musics she has lived with." "Out of the Blue and Into the Amazon" - double CD production "dare to venture into a realm of beautiful sometimes haunting cello playing.."

Extracts of music from all her CD productions is used for film and documentary sound tracks.

With her improvisational and arranging skills she loves to explore new repertoire and this is currently realised in her collaboration with the renowned Pedal Steel guitarist BJ Cole - "Music is not meant to be static, real music takes flight; it is an expression both within and outside time. Few musicians appreciate this as much as BJ Cole and Emily Burridge. When they perform established pieces of music they don't just recite them; their interpretations have the all important extras: poignancy, conviction and weight. Their delicate but powerful duets carry emotions that haunt you. They play with poise enough to take your breath, stop time and speak to you directly."

With her new collaboration (2012) with percussionist Felix Gibbons their first performance was reviewed by Paula Williams of the Brazilian Post: "Thursday evening I was transported on an imaginary train journey through a warm, dazzling, sunlit green, lush and remarkable country, thousands of miles away, by the sublime sounds of Emily Burridge, cellist, composer, performer and producer, with percussionist Felix Gibbons at the Bolivar Hall in London"

As a session musician, either reading an arrangement or creating one, she has contributed to hundreds of recordings playing with the stars of our time including Jools Holland, The Stereophonics, George Michael, film scores including with Hans Zimmer well as lesser known individuals and groups.

She delights in performing and recognises the art of performance as an important role of being a musician. She entertains audiences alike in concert halls, churches, museums, intimate venues of UK rural touring, arboretums and parks, festivals and the ever increasingly popular house concerts.

The country Brazil and it's tribal cultures is featured in Emily's musical compositions. Her expansive relationship with the country commenced with a holiday in 1990 and she has converted that landscape and her personal experience into various musical productions. In 1992 she was invited to perform at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro and as a result of her performance encountered elders of a tribe called the Xavante, indigenous to the Mato Grosso. An intrepid traveller, and in accepting their invitation to visit a Xavante village she travelled alone off the beaten track and was guest with a chief and his family in a traditional Xavante dwelling. In 1995 as a result of this first visit she founded the registered charity "Indigenous People's Cultural Support Trust" no 1050461. Charitable donations and a match funding grant allocated by the British Government overseas development aid enabled her to work in collaboration with a Xavante chief and community and Emily over saw in Brazil the setting up of a solar powered health centre, medicinal gardens and funded a Xavante tribes man on a university course. When in town she was travelling around on $1.00 moped taxi service while she arranged contracts with local firms and then would take a five hour bus ride from the town to the Xavante reservation and stay in a palm hut.

Her association with the Xavante was furthered due to their tradition of singing in groups and "choirs" and on the numerous occasions that she was staying with the tribe she was invited to record. She also made location recordings of their environment. These recordings and the experience of this time is shared through musical productions including her solo performance "Into the Amazon" which has a backing track featuring some of these recordings and is accompanied by seventy five projected images of daily life in a Xavante Indian village. The performance is particularly poignant in the light of global warming, climate change and the development of Brazil at the expense of the loss of a lot of their natural landscape. Where Emily stayed between '94 and '98 outside of the Xavante reservation is now a mono culture of soya for thousands of kilometres and the dawn chorus that Emily recorded has been massively diminished.

Footsteps in the Sand

Out of the Blue and Into the Amazon