Em Marshall
Managing & Artistic Director
The English Music
Festival
Em Marshall-Luck, MA (Oxon)
Em was educated at St Paul's Girls' School (where she was able
to pursue her passionate interest in music) and read Greats at
Brasenose College, Oxford. She became involved in British composer
societies at the age of 14, at which age she also started working
for the specialist music publishers, Thames Publishing. Over the
following years she wrote numerous reviews and articles, and acted
as Secretary and Journal Editor of the Association of English
Singers and Speakers, Secretary of the Peter Warlock Society,
Head of Publicity for the Elgar Society, and was also for many
years Chairman of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, of which
she was a Founder member.
On leaving Oxford Em set up the English Music Festival (EMF),
which she has run ever since, along with the Festival's recording
and publishing arms, EM Records and EM Publishing. In 2011, Robert
Hale published her hardback 296-page book, Composers in the Landscape,
which brings to life a number of British composers and describes
the places they lived, visited and loved, and the inspiration
that such locations brought.
As a reviewer and journalist Em's articles have appeared in a
variety of places, including Musical Opinion, Arabella, The Salisbury
Review, This England, Business 550, The Quarterly Review and The
Journal (the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Journalists).
She has appeared on Radio 4, Classic FM, BBC4 and Radio 3, and
her work has been the focus of articles in Surrey Life and Dorset
Life amongst other publications.
She lives in the countryside with her violinist husband and young
son, and is an avid walker and a member of English Heritage.
