Alexander Jones

Alexander Jones is a member of O/Modernt, Principal of the English Concert and Assistant Principal of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Born in Manchester, Alexander began learning the double bass with Gethin Griffith at the age of seven, and has since studied with Ronan Dunne, Tom Goodman, Graham Mitchell, Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, Dominic Seldis, and has partaken in masterclasses with Edicson Ruiz, Sławomir Grenda, Jiří Hudec and Božo Paradžik. He undertook his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge and his postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was generously supported by the Christopher Hogwood Scholarship and a Munster Trust Derek Butler Award.

Alexander has appeared as Guest Principal of the Philharmonia, BBC Scottish Symphony, Ulster and Royal Scottish National orchestras, and, a keen advocate for historically informed performance, has also appeared as Guest Principal with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dunedin Consort, and The English Concert. As a soloist, he has performed at the Grafenegg Festival, recorded for Divine Art, and has premiered works by David Matthews, Robin Stevens, Jane Wells, and Robin Holloway. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with a number of ensembles and has performed at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and the BBC Proms.

Away from the double bass, Alexander is a keen composer and academic. Following his success as BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2016, his music has been performed at the BBC Proms by members of the Aurora and BBC Symphony orchestras, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In 2020, he won the Society for Music Analysis’ Undergraduate Prize for “outstanding contribution in this field”; subsequently, his writings have been published and are held by the Arnold Schönberg Center (Vienna) and the Antonín Dvořák Museum (Prague). When away from music, Alexander loves to cook, swim, and hike. He is also prone to injury, and over the years has broken his nose falling off a ski-lift, sliced his finger open whilst testing out a sponge, and has been bashed on the skull by the boom of a sailing boat more times than the number of brain cells he probably now has left.