Julian Lloyd Webber

He is a British solo cellist, described as 'the doyen of British Cellists'. Julian Lloyd Webber plays the Barjansky Stradivarius cello, dated c.1690.

Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lloyd Webber was a scholar at the Royal College of Music (London) and completed his studies with Pierre Fournier in Geneva in 1973. He made his professional debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in September 1972 when he gave the first London performance of the Cello Concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss.

Lloyd Webber has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians, including Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Georg Solti, and Esa-Pekka Salonen as well as Stephane Grappelli, Elton John and Cleo Laine.

Lloyd Webber has made many recordings, including his BRIT Award winning Elgar Cello Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine), the Dvořák Cello Concerto with Václav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich and 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, which was described by Gramophone magazine as "beyond any rival". He has also recorded several CDs of short pieces for Universal Classics including Made in England, Cello Moods, Cradle Song and English Idyll (album): "It would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday" - Gramophone.

Lloyd Webber has given more than 50 works their premiere recordings and has inspired new compositions for cello from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold (Fantasy for Cello, 1986, and Cello Concerto, 1989), Joaquín Rodrigo (Concierto como un divertimento, 1982) James MacMillan (Cello Sonata No. 2, 2001), and Philip Glass (Cello Concerto, 2001). 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's Concerto in Suntory Hall, Tokyo and Philip Glass's Concerto at the Beijing International Festival. His recording of the Glass concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Gerard Schwarz was released on the Orange Mountain label in September 2004.

Lloyd Webber's recording, Phantasia, is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and features violinist Sarah Chang. A recent EMI disc, Unexpected Songs, which included collaborations with harpist Catrin Finch and singer Michael Ball was released in June 2006.

Julian married fellow cellist Jiaxin Cheng in 2009 in Kensington and Chelsea, London. He has one son, David (born 1992, Hammersmith, London), from a previous marriage to Zohra Mahmoud Ghazi, a member of the Afghan Royal Family.

An authorised biography, Married to Music, written by Margaret Campbell in 2001 explores his career further.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lloyd_Webber

Orchestral recordings

   * Frank Bridge Oration (1976)

   * Lalo Cello Concerto (1982)

   * Delius Cello Concerto (1982)

   * Joaquín Rodrigo Concierto Como Un Divertimento (1982)

   * Haydn Cello Concertos Nos.1 and 2 (1983)

   * Elgar Cello Concerto (1985)

   * Victor Herbert Cello Concerto No.2 (1986)

   * Arthur Sullivan Cello Concerto (1986)

   * Antonín Dvořák Cello Concerto (1988)

   * Honegger Cello Concerto (1990)

   * Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1(1990)

   * Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme(1991)

   * Miaskovsky Cello Concerto 1991)

   * Gavin Bryars Cello Concerto (1994)

   * Benjamin Britten Cello Symphony (1995)

   * William Walton Cello Concerto 1995)

   * Nyman Concerto for Cello, Saxophone and orchestra (1996)

   * Granville Bantock Sapphic Poem (1999)

   * Philip Glass Cello Concerto (2003)

   * Andrew Lloyd Webber Phantasia album for violin, cello and orchestra (2004)

   * Romantic Cello Concertos (2009)

Chamber recordings

   * Fricker Cello Sonata (1976)

   * Ireland Complete Piano Trios (1976)

   * Webber Variations (album) (1977)

   * Britten Third Suite for Cello (1979)

   * Debussy Cello Sonata (1979)

   * Ireland Cello Sonata (1979)

   * Rachmaninov Cello Sonata (1979)

   * Arnold Fantasy for Cello (1986)

   * Rawsthorne Cello Sonata (1986)

   * Britten Cello Sonata (1988)

   * Prokofiev Ballade (1988)

   * Shostakovich Cello Sonata (1988)

   * Fauré Elegie (1990)

   * Stanford Cello Sonata No.2 (1991)

   * Delius Caprice and Elegy (1993)

   * Holst Invocation (1993)

   * Grieg Cello Sonata (1995)

   * Delius Cello Sonata (1995)

   * Bruch Kol Nidrei (1998)

Semi-classical

   * Oasis (1984)

   * Two Worlds (cd) (2000)

Collections

   * Travels with my Cello (1984)

   * Encore! / Travels with my Cello Vol.2 (1986)

   * Cello Song (1993)

   * English Idyll (1994)

   * Cradle Song (1995)

   * Cello Moods (1998)

   * Elegy (1999)

   * Lloyd Webber Plays Lloyd Webber (2001)

   * Celebration (2001)

   * Made in England (2003)

   * Unexpected Songs (2006)

   * Romantic Cello Concertos (2009)

   * Fair Albion - Music by Patrick Hawes (2009)