A Brief Biography
Simon Hewitt Jones performs, records and broadcasts widely as a solo performer, concertmaster, teacher, writer, chamber musician, music researcher and leader of the Fifth Quadrant (5Q) music collective. His work is strongly influenced by the legacies of Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Leonard Bernstein and Daniel Barenboim, and he is involved extensively with projects that explore the intersection of music, technology, education, and cultural diplomacy.
Simon’s solo and chamber music performances have been featured internationally in festivals and TV/Radio throughout Europe, the USA and the Middle East, including NPR’s Performance Today and BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4. His debut chamber music recording won a BBC Music Magazine ‘Premiere’ award. He tours extensively in the UK, and has appeared at most of the UK’s major venues, including the Bridgewater Hall, the Barbican and the South Bank Centre. Simon has contributed extensively to commercial projects for Universal Music, and his string section has recorded sessions for EMI, Virgin, Naxos and the BBC. He is a regular guest concertmaster of the Ramallah Orchestra, and of several UK-based chamber orchestras.
Simon is currently working on a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, exploring the relationship between musicians, music and technology, which you can follow on this website through the blog. He is the Artistic Director of two groundbreaking events in London UK, Music and the City and Classical Revolution London, and recently founded a ‘Violin School’, the London Violin Studio, in Central London. He conceived and co-founded the Music Teacher Map, a music education techology startup.
Simon is the grandson of composers Tony and Anita Hewitt Jones. His father Tim is a cellist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and brother Thomas is the composer of the ‘Olympic Mascots’ film music for the London 2012 Olympics.
Current Season
In 2011, Simon and 5Q were Musicians-in-residence at the Henley Festival. They opened this year’s Spitalfields Festival with their ‘Road to Jericho’ project, a tour and recording (coming 2012) featuring contemporary British and Palestinian music for string quartet and middle eastern instruments. This summer, Simon gave a debut performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Diego Masson and the Ramallah Orchestra in Jerusalem.
Other projects this season include a UK tour featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the music of Piazzolla, a concert with Harmony Sinfonia featuring Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, performances with the Medici Quartet in Scotland of John Tavener’s ‘Towards Silence’, a piece for four string quartets and a tibetan bowl, and a performance at the Wired 2011 conference on a ’3D-printed violin’.
