Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency Margaret Greatrex Burton-Hill MBE (born 1981) is an English broadcaster, author, novelist, journalist and violinist.

[2] In January 2020 she suffered a brain haemorrhage caused by a cerebral arteriovenous malformation and underwent emergency surgery in New York City.

Burton-Hill was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1981, the daughter of Humphrey Burton, the BBC's first head of music and arts, and Gillian Hawser, an agent, who had previously married Robert Hill.

She has continued to present at the Proms since then, interviewing major artists including Philip Glass, Joshua Bell, Marin Alsop, Quincy Jones and Daniel Barenboim.

In May 2018, Burton-Hill took on the newly created role of Creative Director, Music and Arts, at WQXR-FM in New York, the leading classical radio station in the United States.

Burton-Hill is a frequent host of live events, panels and debates for organisations such as the Hay Festival and Intelligence Squared, regularly appearing at major arts venues including the Barbican Centre, Cadogan Hall, Wigmore Hall, the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Saatchi Gallery, the National Theatre and Old Vic Theatre.

Between 1992 and 2012 Burton-Hill worked as an actress in film and television productions, appearing in The Higher Mortals (1993), Dream Team (1997–98), The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000), Midsomer Murders (2004), Supernova (2005), Hustle (2006), and playing the regular role of Sophie Montgomery in Party Animals (2007), in which her cast-mates included Matt Smith, Andrea Riseborough and Andrew Buchan.

On the 2015 Children In Need special edition of the BBC show Only Connect, she appeared alongside David Baddiel and Philip Hensher in the "Music Monkeys" team playing against team "Chess Pieces" made up of Bonnie Greer, Hugh Dennis and A.N.

On September 29, 2022 she participated in a conversation and concert exploring music's role in brain injury recovery titled Healing with Music, with neurosurgeon Christopher Kellner, writer Maria Popova and violinist Alexi Kenney, in the Richardson Auditorium at the Alexander Hall, Princeton University.

[12] Doctors removed half of her skull at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan, and she was unconscious for 17 days; it was uncertain how much of her brain would recover.