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About
Biography for information only. Not for reprinting.
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Simon Hewitt Jones performs internationally as a solo and collaborative violinist.
In 2009, he will make a debut recital tour in the UK performing Poulenc and Stravinsky at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and major venues in London, Bristol and Cheltenham. Simon will return to the Middle East in December 2008 for performances of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Jerusalem and in Palestinian cities, and his group Court Lane Strings will appear in several UK festivals. In September 2008, Court Lane released a world premiere recording of the string chamber music of Imogen Holst which is now available as a CD and digital download.
Simon has performed extensively in the UK at many major festivals and concert series including Leicester, Ripon, Cheltenham, Edinburgh Fringe, Red Violin and North Wales festivals, as well as performances for Classic FM and BBC Radio 3. As a chamber music performer, he has given many quartet and quintet performances at festivals in Germany, Portugal, Israel, France and Holland, and at London’s South Bank Centre.
Last season, he collaborated with a wide variety of musicians including guest appearances with the Carducci Quartet, sound artist Janek Schaefer, and the Henri Oguike Dance Company, and he will premiere a new work by John Tavener with the Medici Quartet during 2009. Simon appeared at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a series of concerts to celebrate the composer Kenneth Leighton, and recently performed with the Choir of London at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Non-classical recordings have included music by mainstream pop artists and on film soundtracks, both solo and with his session band, Court Lane Studio Strings. Recent projects include tracks by The Kooks and Massive Attack, as well as music for forthcoming films Push (2009) and Creek (2008).
Simon studied at the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music in London, and the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin, with leading violinists such as Eric Gruenberg, Gyorgy Pauk, David Takeno, Nora Chastain, and Hu Kun. He draws extensively on the work of Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Leonard Bernstein, and Daniel Barenboim, and his unusually wide influences from inside and outside the world of music are reflected in his interests in cultural diplomacy and social entrepreneurship.
These interests have led to positions as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Music And The City, a Soiree evening that connects professional and amateur musicians, and as Founder & Artistic Director of a major internet music company startup.
Simon’s long term committment to the Middle East includes twice annual visits to perform and teach violin as an associate artist of the Al Kamandjati Music Center. He is extensively involved in concert tours and educational projects in the region, on both sides of the wall in Israeli and Palestinian territories.
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Simon Hewitt Jones with Ramzi Aburedwan, bazouq player and founder of Al Kamandjati
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Similar work in the UK includes solo performances under the auspices of the Live Music Now! recital scheme, founded by Yehudi Menuhin in the 1970s. Simon has performed more than one hundred solo concerts for a wide variety of disadvantaged audiences, including at schools, hospitals, care homes, and corrective institutions. He is in demand as a private teacher, and maintains a small class of violin students in London.
Simon has been the recipient of major prizes and scholarships from the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Academy of Music / Deutsche Bank, and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. He has previously been supported by the Martin and Countess of Munster trusts.
Simon comes from a long tradition of British music-making; direct family relations include the late composers Tony and Anita Hewitt Jones (Anita’s educational music for children is widely used, and available through Edition Peters). His father Timothy is a cellist with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and his brother, with whom he runs Court Lane Music , is TV/Film composer Thomas Hewitt Jones .
Simon Says: ‘Things I Believe’
I believe that the creative arts should be at the forefront of all education, as they are the best way of nurturing the skills needed to survive in a digitally networked world that we cannot yet predict.
I believe that strengthening a social culture is the best way to seed the kind of generational change that will positively change a society over the long term.
I believe that the creative arts should lead the world in innovation and creativity. Arts that leave this to businesses, technologists and governments risk becoming just fun entertainments.
"Historically, artists have been employed by leading institutions to bring emotional truth to established principles. Yet in our new global society, no institution has the wide acceptance to create values and direction for the majority of people. Markets in free societies are rapidly replacing governments and religious institutions as regulators of the highest authority, and markets perform without values; they do not converse in a human tongue.
The arts can break new ground here, bringing human consciousness to bear on these flows of product and capital, energizing our interpersonal connections, and opening new doors for invention and practice. "
- Benjamin Zander , Conductor & Speaker, The Art of Possibility (2000)