Emma Ayres realised she should go into radio whilst riding across the Taklamakan Desert in North-West China. After nine months on her bicycle, riding from Shropshire on her way to Hong Kong, she knew that having jokes told about violists, therefore her, had gone on too long and she should start to get her own back. This freed her to play the instrument she had really wanted to play since she was eight - the cello, it's just that her mother hadn't been listening that day!

Emma spent twelve years as a professional viola player in England and Hong Kong after completing her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the Berlin Hochschule der Kunste and London's Royal Academy, where she and her quartet studied with members of the Amadeus Quartet. She credits this period, when she also worked with William Pleeth, Milan Skampa and other leading chamber music players as the most influential on her approach to music and the need to communicate.

After returning to Hong Kong in 2001 to present the Classical Music breakfast show on RTHK, she began plans to emigrate to Australia and finally arrived on these hopeful shores in February 2003. She now teaches strings, broadcasts and plays in a string quartet called Pelz. Emma still cycles, but it's a lot harder with a cello on your back. Oh, and she has a little cocker spaniel called Stanley.

Emma is the presenter of 'Classic Breakfast', Monday to Friday, 6.05am - 9.00am