Eccentric English composer, Ethel Smyth, wrote her opera The Wreckers after a visit to the Isles of Scilly.  It is a tale of love, violence and betrayal and the overture depicts the sea in all its moods as a metaphor for the powerful emotions portrayed.

We are delighted to welcome Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto.  It was written in 1939, while the composer was in the USA and combines virtuostic brilliance with elegiac lyricism.  The mournful character reflects Britten’s sense of looming catastrophe, as the world spiralled into war.

Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 was dedicated to the memory of Edward VII, but the brilliant orchestral writing expresses much more personal emotions, both joy and sadness.  Like the composer himself, it is full of contradictions and complexities, referencing Shelley’s poem ‘Rarely, rarely comest thou/Spirit of Delight’.

Charlie Lovell-Jones debuted at a sold-out Royal Festival Hall aged 15. He has since soloed across the world with orchestras including the Sinfonia of London, BBC Philharmonic, English Chamber, Noord Nederlands, Sinfonietta Cracovia, RTÉ Concert, Sendai Philharmonic
and Yamagata Symphony, broadcasting on television and radio. He has worked with conductors including John Wilson, Edward Gardner, Sir Mark Elder, Rumon Gamba, Peter Oundjian, Delyana Lazarova, and Santtu-Matias Rouvali. In 2017, BBCNOW premiered Charlie’s composition for violin, soprano and orchestra, Cariad Cyntaf, with Rebecca Evans and himself as soloists. At the BBC Proms 2021, Charlie debuted as concertmaster of the multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London (SoL), with whom he has recorded many critically-acclaimed CDs. His debut concerto recording of the Walton Violin Concerto, released in February 2025, was nominated for a 2025 Gramophone Award. He subsequently recorded Ruth Gipps’ Violin Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic and Rumon Gamba for Chandos.

Charlie was a Christ Church Prize Scholar at Oxford University, where 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. In the same year, he released his debut recital album on Linn Records as part of the RAM Bicentenary Series. He won the Hattori Foundation, Drake Calleja and Countess of Munster Trusts’ awards, and is a J&A Beare Violin Society Artist. In 2025 he was made an Associate of the RAM, and in 2026 a Classic FM Rising Star.

Charlie studied for over ten years with Rodney Friend MBE, and from 2022-2024, with Augustin Hadelich at the Yale School of Music. He has enjoyed masterclasses with Ida Haendel, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Vadim Repin, Menahem Praessler, Pinchas Zukerman, James Ehnes, and Leonidas Kavakos. Charlie is in regular demand internationally, and has soloed at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Smith Square Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, National Concert Hall Dublin, Wigmore Hall and Konzerthaus Berlin, and has also guest-led the Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras. In 2025, SoL debuted at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. His 2026-27 season includes his next concerto release, a recording of George Dyson’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra; performances of Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Bruch, Barber, and Vaughan-Williams Concertos; his debut with the Wigmore Soloists, and several more tours and recordings with SoL.

Charlie plays a fine 1777 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin, generously loaned by a
benefactor.

For further information, please visit www.charlielovelljones.com