Charlie Lovell-Jones
Britten Violin Concerto
Salomon is delighted to welcome Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto for our next concert at Smith Square Hall (formerly St. John's Smith Square) on June 14.
© Frank Noon Photography
Charlie is in demand as a soloist both nationally and internationally. He has performed at Smith Square Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Snape Maltings, Wigmore Hall and Konzerthaus Berlin, among others. His 2024-25 season includes recording with the Sinfonia of London, performances of concertos by Bach, Brahms, Britten, Bruch, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and Vaughan-Williams, several duo and trio recitals, including his debut at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
For Salomon's concert, Charlie will be performing Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto. As 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, it is a particularly apt choice: completed in 1939, in the early weeks of the Second World War, it stands as Britten's only work in this genre. Though possessing virtuosic elements, it is also marked by lyrical and elegiac passages which undoubtedly reflect Britten's growing concern with the escalating world hostilities. It opens with a series of striking timpani strokes, followed by the entry of the solo violin with a song-like lament soaring above the orchestra. This initial mood is contrasted with a more militaristic and percussive secondary theme. Composed on the cusp and during the initial stages of the war, the concerto can be heard as a personal and artistic response to the looming conflict, capturing both the beauty threatened by war and the unsettling presence of impending aggression.
Charlie Lovell-Jones debuted at a sold-out Royal Festival Hall aged 15 and has since been a soloist with, for example, the BBC Philharmonic, English Chamber, Noord Nederlands, Sinfonietta Cracovia, RTÉ Concert, Sendai Philharmonic and Yamagata Symphony orchestras. In 2017, BBC NOW premiered Charlie's composition for violin, soprano and orchestra, Cariad Cyntaf, with Rebecca Evans and himself as soloists. He has worked with many conductors, including John Wilson, Edward Gardner, Sir Mark Elder, Rumon Gamba, Peter Oundjian, Daniela Candillari, Louis Lohraseb, Ken Takaseki, Moritz Gnann, and Michael Seal.
Charlie was the youngest-ever member of the John Wilson Orchestra and has since led Wilson's multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London on many occasions, including their 2021 BBC Proms debut, 2022 BBC Prom and winter tour, as well as on several studio album recordings. The Sinfonia of London was also the orchestra on his 2025 debut concerto recording of the Walton Violin Concerto.
If you would like to play with the Salomon Orchestra, then please email admin@salomonorchestra.org with your details and experience. We are always keen to find new players.
He has competed in several international competitions, including the BBC Young Musician 2016, the Sendai 2019, Shanghai Isaac Stern 2020, and Joachim 2021 International Competition.
A Christ Church Prize Scholar at Oxford University, he graduated in 2020 with a Gibbs Prize in Music. He received a Bicentenary Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music and graduated in 2022 with the Strings Postgraduate Prize. That same year, he released his debut recital album on Linn Records as part of the RAM Bicentenary Series. He won the Hattori Foundation, Harriet Cohen, John Fussell, Drake Calleja and Countess of Munster Trusts' awards, and is a J&A Beare Violin Society Artist.
Charlie plays a fine 1777 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin, generously loaned by a benefactor.