Julian
Lloyd Webber
UK
Julian Lloyd Webber enjoys one of the most creative careers in music today. As a solo cellist he has performed with many of the world’s great orchestras and conductors including the Berlin Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra’s under conductors Georg Solti, Lorin Maazel, Yehudi Menuhin, Neville Marriner, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mark Elder and Andrew Davis.
Julian’s many recordings include his BRIT Award-winning Elgar Cello Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin – chosen as the ‘finest ever version’ by BBC Music Magazine, the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the London Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich, a coupling of Britten’s Cello Symphony and Walton’s Cello Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields described as ‘beyond any rival’ in Gramophone magazine and ‘Variations’, famous as the theme to ITV’s long running ‘South Bank Show’. Julian has also inspired more than fifty new works for cello from composers as varied as Malcolm Arnold, Joaquín Rodrigo, Andrew Lloyd Webber, James MacMillan, Philip Glass and Eric Whitacre.
In 2007 Julian founded the UK Government’s In Harmony programme which has introduced music to more than sixty thousand school children from the least privileged parts of England. Julian was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 1994 and received the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum (1998) the Independent Society of Musician’s Distinguished Musician of the Year Award (2014) and the London Cello Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2023).
In 2014 Julian was forced to retire from playing the cello due to a neck injury. In July 2015 he was appointed principal of Birmingham Conservatoire. In September 2017 the Conservatoire was awarded the Royal status by Her Majesty the Queen.
Julian continues to promote young musicians through his ongoing series of Rising Stars with Classic FM and Sky Arts TV.