Jonathan Williams comes from a family of musicians and started to play the cello aged 5. Early musical training also included 5 years as a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music he won a Gulbenkian Foundation Fellowship that enabled him to study with Pierre Fournier in Geneva (Switzerland).
In 1975 he was awarded a bronze medal as well as the Bach prize at the Geneva International Cello Competition. His love of playing Chamber Music made him decide to concentrate on working with small chamber groups. He became a founder member of the Esterhazy Baryton Trio who made several recordings of Haydn Trios for EMI. In 1980 he joined the Fires of London, a group who specialised in contemporary music, particularly music by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. These groups took him all over the world.
In 1988 he was asked to join the Delme String Quartet with whom he made over 20 CDs and he also became principle cellist of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields’ chamber group led by Iona Brown.
He played the cello on Kate’s songs Hounds Of Love, Between A Man And A Woman, The Fog and Heads We’re Dancing.
More recently he has decided to put an end to travelling the world for work and likes to work in the London studios recording for films and TV. Jonathan plays on a cello by Carlo Giuseppe Testore made in Milan in 1692.
References
- Jonathan Williams. Arcadia Music, retrieved 4 September 2017.
