Julia Hwang gave her professional solo debut with the English National Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the age of nine, performing Bach's Concerto in A minor. In the same year, she performed for legendary violinist Ivry Gitlis in London and was invited to open the Proms on the Close for Jose Carreras. She recorded two CDs at the ages of eleven and twelve, and, also at the age of twelve, performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Julia has been a veteran of the concert stage for many years and her numerous solo appearances with orchestras internationally have led to an ever-increasing schedule of concerts both in the UK and abroad.
In 2015, she was appointed to be a cultural ambassador for the Brace Alzheimer’s Research, alongside broadcasters Jonathan Dimbleby and Martyn Lewis. She also became a Concordia Foundation Artist in 2017, which led to many public performances in London’s main concert halls, and also in hospitals and care centres. Other public and charity performances have included performing at the 2012 Violins of Hope music festival in North Carolina, USA, with Shlomo Mintz; a collaboration in Israel with Vadim Gluzman; charity concerts at Highgrove to raise funds for The Prince’s Trust alongside Julian Lloyd-Webber; and innumerable further concerts to raise money for, among others, The Alzheimer’s Society, the NSPCC and MacMillan Cancer Relief.
Julia has appeared many times on live television and radio through the BBC and ITV and, in 2012, she was featured in a BBC4 documentary about the nation’s favourite composition ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Her performance of this work was specifically chosen by the BBC to represent this timeless classic of the great British composer, and the documentary has been re-broadcast on many occasions due to popular demand. Her latest CD, recorded with Signum Classics, features Grieg, Lutoslawski, Wieniawski and Vaughan Williams, which she performed in live sessions of BBC In Tune and Classic FM respectively, and was reviewed by Gramophone as displaying a “model of expressive purity”.
Julia completed her undergraduate degree as a scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, graduating with the 2017 Larmor Award. She began her violin studies at the age of seven with Richard Crabtree as an academic and music scholar at Clifton College, and currently studies with Itzhak Rashkovsky in London.
Having been offered a full scholarship from the Royal College of Music, she is currently pursuing postgraduate studies as an Ian Evans Lombe Scholar. She is the winner of the Senior Award of the Hattori Foundation, and is also supported by awards won from the Drake Calleja Trust and the Countess
of Munster Musical Trust.
She plays on a Peter Guarnerius of Mantua violin c.1698, on generous loan from the Alderson Trust.
Born in 1966, Charles Matthews studied at the Royal College of Music, London, and was an organ scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. His teachers have included Beryl Tichbon, Gwilym Isaac, David Pettit, Patricia Carroll, Nicholas Danby, Charles Spinks and Dr Richard Marlow.
Charles has won numerous awards, perhaps most notably first prize in the 1999 Franz Liszt Organ Interpretation Competition in Budapest. His most recent solo recording is of Francis Routh's cycle The Well-Tempered Pianist; some tracks from this CD can be heard free of charge at the composer's website. June 2017 saw the release of Subito, a CD of works for violin and piano performed with Julia Hwang.
Recent engagements have included solo performances in the UK and Spain, duo recitals with flute, recorder, violin, 'cello and voice, work for BBC Radio 3, and also numerous performances with ensembles and with choirs.
Charles has performed for productions by the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, and recorded music used in various theatres in Spain. A collection of his compositions for flute and piano was published in 2006 by Schott.
Charles is organist of St Catharine's Church, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, and also contributes to the Spire organ and electronics project. He works extensively with young people, acts as piano accompanist and organ tutor at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and works as conductor and contemporary music coach for the annual Curso Internacional Matisse at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain, where he runs the Ensemble Postante.
Free recital (retiring collection)