Cellist and viol player Jonathan Manson was born in Edinburgh and received his formative training at the International Cello Centre in Scotland under the direction of Jane Cowan, later going on to study with Steven Doane and Christel Thielmann at the Eastman School of Music in New York. A growing fascination for early music led him to Holland, where he studied viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken. For ten years he was the principal cellist of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, with whom he performed and recorded more than 150 Bach cantatas and, together with Yo-Yo Ma, Vivaldi’s Concerto for two cellos. As a concerto soloist he has recently appeared at the Wigmore Hall, the Carnegie Hall and the South Bank Centre.

Jonathan is an active chamber musician, performing repertoire from the Renaissance to the Romantic, and a long-standing partnership with the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock has led to critically acclaimed recordings of the Bach gamba sonatas and, together with Rachel Podger, Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concert. In recent years they have joined forces with the flautist Emmanuel Pahud and violinist Matthew Truscott, leading to two recordings of Bach and successful tours of Europe, the USA and the Far East. Jonathan is also co-principal of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a founder member of the renowned viol consort Phantasm. Jonathan lives in Oxfordshire and is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

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Jonathan Manson