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• Simon Hewitt Jones, Violinist

  English concert violinist. Asking essential questions about what's happening to music and the arts, and the role of the violin in contemporary world culture.

• Contact Me: T: +44 (0) 20 7060 0607 E: shj [at] courtlanemusic [dot] com W: www.courtlanemusic.com Instant: Message My iPhone

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Why? Well, it’s all about the relationship of creativity and post-industrialism.
Throughout the globe, there’s a hierarchy in education. At the top, Maths and Languages (and sometimes Sciences). After that, Humanities. And at the bottom of the scale of priority, the Arts.
Over here in the UK, there’s been a lot of intelligent comment about the death […]

Talking of EMI (and yes, their share price did zoom right up today), my cousin’s band Grace is finally about to break out into the big wide world, and there are flyposters all over London for their new album, Wonderful (and judging by the state EMI is in let’s hope Grace manages to sell plenty […]

This analysis of Chicago Symphony’s current dilemma expresses well the ever-evolving qualities now needed in music leaders around the world.
“Serious musicians — including the 100-plus members of the CSO — know that finding a new music director for one of the world’s top orchestras is not comparable to finding a new coach for a sports […]

A cryptic note from an acquaintance buried deep in the music industry appears on a social networking site. Might we be seeing another merger/takeover come Monday morning? *cough* EMI *cough*

If you haven’t already heard about the proposition that the vast majority of pianist Joyce Hatto’s recordings are hoaxes, you should read here and here. Also her Guardian obituary (she died last year) is here. This could have massive consequences for classical music, if it proves to be true.

I was invited to a lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine entitled ‘Music and Medicine’. Half of the lecture was of particular interest: a seminar by Paul Robertson, ex-leader of the Medici Quartet, on the subject of how music can be practically applied in a clinical setting, how musical expression can remain intact even […]

I just found an old Question & Answer session I did for a Live Music Now (LMN) newsletter a few months ago. So here’s a quick insight into what I do outside of the concert hall for LMN. As is the way with these things, these are more the journalist’s words than mine, but you’ll […]

The Violin Player - a live recording of my brother’s beautiful little violin piece from Wednesday’s concert (video below). The studio version of this track is now available for download from iTunes, Napster and all good music download sites. Click here to download it at iTunes:

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Deep snow and remote Welsh valleys don’t go well together, so our morning workshop is cancelled. The silver lining is a walk in the white, slushy central park and a deliciously unexpected half hour of practice before our Millennium Centre concert.

It’s probably a good thing we’re not out there navigating to some remote place in […]

A must-read article by Steve Jobs:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
Digital rights are the things stopping you from downloading music from iTunes and then sharing it. If you buy my new MP3 from iTunes, you can transfer it to your iPod, but if you own another company’s digital music player then you can’t.
What’s notable about this article is that Apple […]

Just arrived in Cardiff for some concerts. David Worswick & I are performing some highlights from the Virtuoso Violin tour; catch us in Newport (tomorrow, 1pm, Riverfront Arts Centre) and Cardiff (Thursday, 1pm, Tesco Stage @ Wales Millennium Centre).
Delightfully, each venue has managed to find creative ways of spelling our names. I’m hyphenated in Cardiff, […]

It’s one of those things which I guess a lot of us intuitively know, but is really hard to define:
What’s musicality?
I came across a great explanation of the process by which we hear things we do and don’t like.
“Each second, there are thousands of waves arriving at our ears from wherever the source of the […]

Part of the Violin Tips series
Working on Bazzini’s fearsomely virtuosic Round of the Goblins this morning, I struck upon a passage in tenths (a double stopped note where the pitch of one note is ten degrees of the scale away from the other), and realized I’d have to slow it down and really work very […]

The first in an ongoing series of the many wonderful stories that crop up unfailingly regularly in the music profession…
The Lunch Invitation
So, a close friend of mine, X, is driving to the house of Mr Very Famous Composer for lunch. Classic fm is playing on the radio. The lunchtime requests programme comes on. “Call now […]