When nine-year-old Hannah Marcinowicz asked her parents if she could learn to play the clarinet, they were somewhat sceptical, considering her older brother’s attempt to learn the cornet turned out to be a bit of a disaster. But 24 years on, the 33-year-old, who grew up in Watford, is hailed a “‘superb’” young musician and has performed as a soloist for royalty at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Barbican Centre.

Now Hannah, who played Happy Birthday on the clarinet to her mum on her 60th at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro after climbing it with her family, will be returning home to perform as a guest for the Radlett Choral Society at Watford Grammar School for Boys this weekend.

She says: “My mum has been a member of Radlett Choral Society for a number of years and on occasion they have invited me to come and be the guest soloist for the evening.

“I don’t come from a very musical family – my mum sings in the choir and my dad has always had a huge appreciation of music, but neither of them perform on an instrument at all. My brother is very different to me, he is very outdoorsy and didn’t really take to the cornet – so when I came to them asking to learn an instrument, I think they felt awful as they were thinking it might be one of their biggest regrets.”

The former Parmiter’s School pupil, who went on to study at Purcell School in Bushey after being awarded a scholarship, adds that music was all she ever remembers wanting to do.

“I was four -years -old when I started the recorder, and I remember being better at it than my classmates... I couldn’t understand why they found it hard. I went on to the piano after that, and then started the clarinet, and the saxophone was a natural progression from that.”

In fact she chose the clarinet by chance The reason she chose the clarinet is actually very random. Hannah explains: “There was a group of girls at school that said they were learning the clarinet, so I wanted to learn it.

“When I asked my mum if I could learn the clarinet, I didn’t even know what it was. In fact, when my mum said yes I could learn it, she got me a clarinet and I was so excited, that I was sat in the back of the car and I opened the case upside down and it fell out.

“I don’t have that clarinet anymore, but I have had great pleasure in passing them on to younger musicians.”

Hannah, who was awarded another scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music, adds that she loves performing and that her stand-out moment was towards the end of her time at the academy, was when she had a solo part at the BBC Proms, conducted by Colin Davis.

“Music that strikes me is music that really moves me,” she says. “As musicians we draw influences from so many different areas and I find personally, I am most moved by the simplicity of a beautiful melody.

“It is actually hard to compose a tune successfully, as often with music less is more – it is knowing where to leave things out. It is also then the performer’s job to bring that music to life.”

The piece of music that has moved her most recently Hannah tells me is a piece by Jennie Muskett, who is the music composer of the BBC drama Spooks. “I commissioned her to write a piece for the Equator Festival: Women of the World series, which I was taking part in last year.

“The piece is called 2,300 and it was about the number of miles between a Syrian young mother and refugee with a baby, walking from Syria to Germany. It is all about her plight – she is trying to sing her baby a lullaby, but has this really long, arduous walk at the same time and that is really reflected in the music.

“I will actually be playing some of the pieces from the festival this weekend and they will include Debbie Wiseman’s Wolf Hall as never heard before.”

Watford Grammar School for Boys, Rickmansworth Road, Watford, Saturday, June 18, 7.30pm. Details: 01923 226836, radlettchoral.org