Julian Lloyd Webber

Widely regarded as one of the most creative musicians of his generation, Julian Lloyd Webber has collaborated with an extraordinary array of musicians from Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Georg Solti to Stephane Grappelli, Elton John and Cleo Laine. Julian has made many outstanding recordings including his Brit-Award winning Elgar Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine) the Dvorak Concerto with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Symphony under Maxim Shostakovich and a coupling of Britten's Cello Symphony and Walton's Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which was described by Gramophone magazine as "beyond any rival". Julian has also recorded several highly successful CD's of short pieces for Universal Classics including Made In England, Cello Moods, and Cradle Song: "It would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday" - Gramophone. Julian has given more than fifty works their premiere recordings and has inspired new compositions for cello from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold and Joaquin Rodrigo to James MacMillan and Philip Glass. Recent concert performances have included three further works composed for Julian - Michael Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone on BBC Television, Gavin Bryars' Concerto in Suntory Hall, Tokyo and Philip Glass's Concerto at the Beijing International Festival. Julian's recording of the Glass concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Gerard Schwarz was released on the Orange Mountain label in September 2004. Julian's most recent recording, Phantasia, is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and features violinist, Sarah Chang. This is available on EMI and is the first of several planned recordings that Julian will be making for EMI Classics. His new EMI disc, Unexpected Songs, featuring 21 tracks, including collaborations with harpist Catrin Finch and singer Michael Ball will be released in June this year. Julian Lloyd Webber plays the 'Barjansky' Stradivarius cello of c.1690. www.julianlloydwebber.com