The British clarinettist Michael Collins is one of the most sought-after and successful wind players of his generation. At the age of sixteen he won the woodwind prize in the first BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, and at twenty-two made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, New York. Since then he has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s major orchestras and most renowned conductors. 　　Michael Collins has done much to promote the clarinet concerto repertoire of today’s notable composers: he gave the premiere of John Adams’ Clarinet Concerto Gnarly Buttons (which was written for him) at London’s South Bank Centre conducted by the composer, and the UK and Dutch premieres of Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Concerto. 　　Michael Collins is also in demand as a chamber musician, regularly performing with the Lindsay and Belcea string quartets, Martha Argerich, Stephen Hough, Mikhail Pletnev, Lars Vogt, Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis and Isabelle van Keulen. In 2001 he was featured as International Artist in Residence for the 2001 Bath International Festival, and in June 2002 as guest artist in a series of chamber concerts with other eminent musicians at London’s Wigmore Hall. 　　An appreciation by Edward Greenfield, critic and broadcaster . . . 　　It is a key sign of great artistry when a musician regularly magnetises the ear from the very first phrase. We all know and recognise the immediate and individual illumination of a Heifetz, a Casals or, in our own time, of pianists like Murray Perahia. It is a far rarer experience when we recognise this quality in a wind-player. Yet from his boyhood onwards -- when, at sixteen, he came first in the wind category of the 1978 BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition -- Michael Collins has played his clarinet with this supreme magic ingredient. There are dozens of recordings by the Philharmonia Orchestra (of which Collins was principal clarinet for six years), of The Nash Ensemble, or of The London Sinfonietta, when suddenly a clarinet melody will float out with new intensity. And similarly so in live concerts. 　　Though he works so well as part of a team, selflessly responsive to the needs of the music, he is primarily one of nature's soloists. Having made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, New York, as long ago as 1984, he is now increasingly devoting his career to playing concertos and giving recitals. Not surprisingly, many artists of comparable stature have been eager to work with him, among them the viola players Yuri Bashmet and Tabea Zimmermann, the violinists Dimitri Sitkovetsky and Joshua Bell, and the cellist Steven Isserlis.