Charlie Lovell-Jones, Bill Anderson, BBC Philharmonic & Rumon Gamba
Biography Charlie Lovell-Jones, Bill Anderson, BBC Philharmonic & Rumon Gamba
Charlie Lovell-Jones
Welsh Violinist Charlie Lovell-Jones (b.1999) has been recognised as one of the most promising international soloists of his generation. Since his sold-out Royal Festival Hall debut aged fifteen, Charlie has appeared as soloist with orchestras across the UK and beyond, including the English Chamber Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, Noord Nederlands Orkest and Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, as well as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Charlie has appeared live on radio in broadcasts of Waxman Carmen Fantasy (RTÉ Radio) Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending (BBC Radio 3), Karl Jenkins Violin Concerto (BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Wales) and his own composition, Cariad Cyntaf (2017), for which he was joined by soprano Rebecca Evans (BBC Radio Wales). He has worked with conductors such as John Wilson, Edward Gardner, Sir Mark Elder, Ken Takaseki, Michael Seal, Lee Reynolds, Moritz Gnann, Ben Gernon, Grant Llewellyn, Stephen Bell, and Jonathan Mann. Charlie is also a Beare's International Violin Society Artist.
Competition successes include The Gregynnog Young Musician Competition (winner, 2013), BBC Young Musician (Category Finalist, 2016), The Sendai International Music Competition (2019), Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition (2020), and The International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition (2021). At 16, Charlie became the youngest ever person to receive the Under-25 Composers’ Medal at the Urdd Eisteddfod in Wales, where he has also won first prize in solo piano, instrumental duo, chamber, orchestral, vocal ensemble, choral, and dramatic competitions.
Charlie was the youngest-ever member of the John Wilson Orchestra and has since led Wilson’s multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London (SoL) on many occasions, including their 2021 BBC Proms debut, 2022 BBC Prom and winter tour, as well as on several studio album recordings. Critical accolades for his work with SoL include praise from Gramophone Magazine and Classic FM for his solos on their album of orchestral works by Ravel.
Charlie read Music at the University of Oxford where he was a Christ Church Prize Scholar and a William Ewald Instrumental Exhibitioner, graduating in 2020 with a Gibbs Prize for the highest First-Class Degree in Musicology. That same year, Charlie was awarded an immediate Bicentenary Scholarship during his postgraduate audition at the Royal Academy of Music, from where he graduated in 2022 with the Strings Postgraduate Prize. Charlie studied for over ten years with Rodney Friend MBE, and now studies at the Yale School of Music with Augustin Hadelich. To support his studies, Charlie has been the recipient of generous awards from the Harriet Cohen Music Award for British musicians aged 18-30, the Hattori Foundation, Drake Calleja Trust, Countess of Munster Trust, and John Fussell Trust.
With support from the Welsh Livery Guild and Cardiff City Council, Charlie attended the Cambridge International String Academy annually from 2012–2017, the Residart ‘Horigome in Italia’ Festival 2014, and the Friend’s International Violin Academy 2020. Additionally, he has enjoyed masterclasses with Ida Haendel, Yuzuko Horigome, György Pauk, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Vadim Repin, Menahem Pressler, Pinchas Zukerman, Leonidas Kavakos, James Ehnes, Tai Murray, and most recently, Ida Kavafian at the Lincoln Center.
Charlie is in demand as both a soloist and recitalist. His 2022–23 season featured performances of concertos by Sibelius, Britten, Glazunov, Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, and Bruch; a world premiere performance of Aaron Kernis’ Piano Trio; duo recitals at Yale University with Arseniy Gusev and Marina Iwao, in London with Julian Chan, and with Ariel Lanyi at the 1901 Arts Club; and trio recitals with Ariel Lanyi and cellist Yoanna Prodanova for Music at Pavilion Road, and the King’s Lynn Festival. In 2022, he debuted at the Wigmore Hall, and in 2023, at Birmingham Symphony Hall.
Charlie’s debut album, recorded with Linn Records as part of his RAM Bicentenary Scholarship, was released in December 2022. Titled Piercing Silence, the album promotes music by queer, Black, and female composers, including a new commission from British Composer Award winner Deborah Pritchard, Towards Freedom, written in response to contemporary human rights issues.
Charlie is passionate about contemporary music: alongside Towards Freedom, Charlie gave the world premiere of Tod Machover's Resolve Remote for violin and electronics as part of the RAM’s 200PIECES Bicentenary celebration in 2022, which he performed again at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April 2023. While leader of Oxford University’s contemporary music group, Ensemble Isis, he also performed Pritchard’s Inside Colour for solo violin. At Yale, he frequently performs works by fellow student composers.
Upcoming engagements include further recordings with Sinfonia of London, performances of concertos by Walton, Bruch, Brahms, Sibelius, Vaughan-Williams, Vivaldi, and Dvořak with orchestras in London, Krakow, Cardiff, Winchester, and New Haven, as well as a wide range of chamber music recitals including his debut at the Konzerthaus Berlin.
Charlie plays a 1777 G.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from a generous benefactor. Beyond the violin, Charlie was Music Director of the all-male a cappella group, The Oxford Commas (with whom he toured the east coast of America and produced a music video) and sang tenor in Oxford’s most acclaimed student chamber choir, Schola Cantorum.
Rumon Gamba
British conductor Rumon Gamba is Chief Conductor of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held since January 2022. Previous positions included Principal Conductor and Music Director of NorrlandsOperan (2008-2015); Chief Conductor of the Aalborg Symfoniorkester (2011-2015), and Chief Conductor and Music Director of Iceland Symphony Orchestra (2002-2010). He regularly leads the BBC orchestras and has appeared at the BBC Proms on a number of occasions.
A champion of new music, Gamba has given several high profile premieres including the world premieres of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at English National Opera, Brett Dean’s Viola Concerto with the composer and BBC Symphony Orchestra; national premieres of Poul Ruders’ Dancer in the Dark and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Blood on the Floor and Scherzoid with NorrlandsOperan and the Australian premiere of the original version of Sibelius’ Symphony No.5 with Queensland Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he conducted Larsson Gothe’s The African Prophetess with the orchestra of NorrlandsOperan and Cape Town Opera Chorus as part of the Royal Stockholm Orchestras’ composer week. He appeared at the 2017 Enescu Festival with works by Sven Helbig and Rolf Martinsson. Rumon returned to the BBC Proms in 2017 to conduct a BBC commission by Michael Gordon for the jazz ensemble ‘Bang on a Can All-Stars’ together with the Proms Youth Ensemble. He has also collaborated with Ittai Shapira and Lotta Wennäkoski with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Kymi Sinfonietta respectively.
Highlights of Gamba’s recent and future seasons include Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Helsingborg Philharmonic, Romanian Radio Symphony, Madeconian Phiharmonic, Goteborgs Symfoniker, Ulster Orchestra and WDR Funkhausorchester; a concert performance with Wermland Opera in Karlstad, and several concerts and recordings with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
Rumon Gamba has conducted a number of operatic titles including Rigoletto at Scottish Opera, Carmen, La bohème, Otello, and Candide. In celebration of Umeå’s status as European Capital of Culture 2014, he conducted NorrlandsOperan in an epic outdoor production of Elektra with La Fura dels Baus which was critically acclaimed. With both NorrlandsOperan and Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Gamba continued his popular late night concerts aimed at young adults which he first introduced whilst at Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Next season he will conduct The Magic Flute for Oulu Opera, and future projects include a ballet double bill for Finnish National Opera.
Rumon Gamba has recorded exclusively with Chandos Records for over 20 years. His projects include a series of D’Indy’s orchestral works with the Iceland Symphony, the first of which was nominated for a Grammy Award. Other recordings include works by the Swedish composer Dag Wirén: British Overtures and Tone Poems with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, as well as works by Malcolm Williamson, Malcom Arnold and Milòs Ròzsa. Recent projects include a Ruth Gipps recording with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and a recording of Finnish overtures with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra.
Gamba studied with Colin Metters at the Royal Academy of Music and became the first conducting student to receive the DipRAM. He won the Lloyds Bank BBC Young Musicians Conductors Workshop in February 1998, and then became Assistant and then Associate Conductor to the BBC Philharmonic, a post he held until 2002. The Royal Academy of Music recognised his contribution to music when they made him an Associate that same year. In 2017, he became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.
