Julian Lloyd Webber (born 14 April 1951) is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
Early years and education Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer and music educator William Lloyd Webber and his wife, Jean Johnstone (a piano teacher). He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. The composer Herbert Howells was his godfather. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1968 and completed his studies with Pierre Fournier in Geneva in 1973.
Career Lloyd Webber made his professional debut as a cellist at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in September 1972 when he gave the first London performance of the cello concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians, including conductors Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Georg Solti, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Mark Elder, Andrew Davis, Charles Mackerras and Esa-Pekka Salonen, pianists Clifford Curzon and Murray Perahia as well as Stéphane Grappelli, Elton John and Cleo Laine. He was described in The Strad as the "doyen of British cellists".Andrew Mikolajski: The Strad, July 1984.
His many recordings include his BRIT Award-winning Elgar Cello Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine),Jerrold Northrop Moore: "Building a Library", BBC Music Magazine, September 1992. 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 as "beyond any rival" by Edward Greenfield in Gramophone magazine,"Britten/Walton Works for Cello and Orchestra", review by Edward Greenfield, Gramophone He has also made several recordings of shorter pieces for Universal Classics including Made in England, Cello Moods, Cradle Song and English Idyll.
Lloyd Webber has premiered the recordings of more than 50 works, inspiring 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). More recent concert performances have included four further works composed for Lloyd Webber – Michael Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone on BBC Television, Gavin Bryars's Concerto in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Glass's Cello Concerto at the Beijing International Festival and Eric Whitacre's The River Cam at the Southbank Centre. His recording of the Glass concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Gerard Schwarz was released on Glass' Orange Mountain label in September 2005.
Lloyd Webber's other recordings include The Art of Julian Lloyd Webber (2011), Evening Songs (2012), A Tale of Two Cellos (2013), Vivaldi Concertos for Two Cellos together with Jiaxin Cheng (2014) and his debut recording as a conductor of English music for strings And the Bridge Is Love (2015).
In May 2009, Lloyd Webber was elected President of the Elgar Society in succession to Sir Adrian Boult, Lord Menuhin, and Richard Hickox.
On 28 April 2014, Lloyd Webber announced his retirement from public performance as a cellist because of a herniated disc in his neck which reduced the power in his bow arm. His final public performance as a cellist was on 2 May 2014 at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, with the English Chamber Orchestra.
In September 2014, the charity Live Music Now announced Lloyd Webber as its public spokesman."Julian Lloyd Webber joins Live Music Now", 22 September 2014, Live Music Now
In July 2015, Lloyd Webber was appointed Principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
In 2016, Lloyd Webber scripted and presented 'Classic Cellists at the BBC' for BBC TV"Classic Cellists at the BBC", 8 May 2020 BBC Programmes and in 2019, to commemorate the centenary of the first performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto in October 1919, Lloyd Webber scripted and presented 'Music in the Air: 100 years of Elgar's Cello Concerto' for Classic FM."Julian Lloyd Webber to present ‘100 years of Elgar's Cello Concerto' on Classic FM", 19 October 2019
In 2021 Lloyd Webber presented and scripted a five-part series for Classic FM in which he chose "30 under 30 of today's finest young musicians at a time when it has never been more difficult for them to show their talents on stage"."Britain's Young Classical Musicians Need Our Help Like Never Before", 28 February 2021, The Daily Telegraph"Julian Lloyd Webber's Rising Stars", February 2021, The Times In November 2021 Sky Arts screened the TV special "Classic FM's Rising Stars with Julian Lloyd Webber"."Classic FM’s Rising Stars with Julian Lloyd Webber – a TV special on Sky Arts", 20 October 2021, Classic FM (UK) In July 2022 Lloyd Webber made a further selection of 30 Rising Stars together with Classic FM"Classic FM’s Rising Stars: 30 brilliant musicians we’re celebrating in 2022", 18 July 2022, Classic FM (UK) and another Sky Arts special was shown in November 2022. A third series of Rising Stars was announced by Classic FM in March 2023 and broadcast on 13 November 2023 In November 2023 Lloyd Webber was presented with the London Cello Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. A fifth selection of Rising Stars was aired in December 2025", In December 2025 it was announced that Julian Lloyd Webber would be returning to the concert platform in April 2026 for his 75th Birthday Concert at London's Wigmore Hall"
In April 2026, just before his 75th birthday, Julian Lloyd Webber published his autobiography, Bows and Arrows, in which he discusses his career, his musical family, the 2014 neck injury that ended his playing, and his work in music education.
On 14 April 2026, Lloyd Webber's 75th birthday was marked by a gala charity concert at Wigmore Hall in aid of Music Masters, featuring his wife Jiaxin Lloyd Webber, Mariatu and Isata Kanneh-Mason, and pianists Lauren Zhang, Edward Leung and Rebeca Omordia. Twelve years after retiring from performance due to a herniated disc, Lloyd Webber briefly returned to the stage with a borrowed cello to play Fauré's Élégie, which Keith Clarke of Musical America described as "no comeback—just an amuse-bouche to store in the memory".
Involvement with music education Demonstrating his long involvement with music education, he formed the Music Education Consortium with James Galway and Evelyn Glennie in 2003. As a result of successful and continued lobbying by the Consortium, on 21 November 2007, the UK government announced an infusion of £332 million for music education. In 2008, the British government invited Lloyd Webber to be chairman of its In Harmony programme which is based on the Venezuelan social programme El Sistema. The government-commissioned Henley Review of Music Education (2011) reported, "There is no doubt that they [the in Harmony projects] have delivered life-changing experiences." In July 2011 the founder of El Sistema in Venezuela, José Antonio Abreu, recognised in Harmony as part of the El Sistema worldwide network. Further, in November 2011 the British government announced additional support for in Harmony across England by extending funding from the Department for Education and adding funding from Arts Council England from 2012 to 2015. Lloyd Webber now chairs the charity Sistema England. In October 2012 he led the Incorporated Society of Musicians campaign against the implementation of the English Baccalaureate which proposed to remove arts subjects from the core curriculum. In February 2013 the government withdrew its plans. Lloyd Webber has represented the arts sector on programmes such as BBC1's Question Time, The Andrew Marr Show, BBC2's Newsnight and BBC Radio 4's Today, The World at One, PM, Front Row and The World Tonight.
Lloyd Webber was part of the expert panel which produced the UK government's Model Music Curriculum in March 2021."New Music Curriculum to Help Schools Deliver World-Class Teaching", 26 March 2021
He is a patron of the charity Quartet of Peace, which supports the further education of talented young South African musicians, honorary patron of the Nucleo Project and an inaugural ambassador of the London Music Fund. He is also the patron of Guildford County School and a patron of the Purcell School
Principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Lloyd Webber was appointed principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in July 2015. During his five-year tenure he oversaw the move to a new £57 million building on the Birmingham City University City Centre Campus and the merger of the Conservatoire with the Birmingham School of Acting. In September 2017 the Conservatoire received the Royal status by Queen Elizabeth II. In September 2020, in recognition of his tenure, Lloyd Webber was appointed emeritus professor of performing arts by Birmingham City University."Prestigious university status awarded to Professor Julian Lloyd Webber in recognition of his successful tenure at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire", University News, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 20 August 2020"Julian Lloyd Webber to leave the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire", Gramophone, 20 August 2020"First album released in unique partnership between Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Naxos Records", Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 20 July 2020 "Conservatoire achieves the highest NSS result of all UK conservatoires for the second year running", 11 December 2019
Honours and awards Lloyd Webber received the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum in 1998 and a Classic FM Red Award for outstanding services to music in 2005. He won the Best British Classical Recording at the 1986 Brit Awards for his recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto with Sir Yehudi Menuhin and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Hull, Plymouth University and Thames Valley University.
He is vice president of the Delius Society and a patron of Music in Hospitals and the patron of the Elgar Festival He has been an ambassador for the Prince's Trust for more than thirty years and a patron of CLIC Sargent for more than thirty years.
In May 2001, he was granted the first busker's licence on the London Underground.
In September 2009 he joined the board of governors of the Southbank Centre. He was the Foundling Museum's Handel Fellow for 2010. He was the only classical musician chosen to play at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.
On 16 April 2014 Lloyd Webber received the Incorporated Society of Musicians Distinguished Musician Award.
Lloyd Webber was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to music.
Personal life
In 1974, aged 23, Lloyd Webber married Celia Ballantyne. The marriage was dissolved in 1989. In 1989 he married Zohra Mahmoud Ghazi, a great niece of Mohammed Zahir Shah, king of Afghanistan, with whom he had a son. His third marriage was to French-Algerian Kheira Bourahla. In 2009 he married Jiaxin Cheng (also a cellist)."Julian Lloyd Webber is selling his Stradivarius after being forced to retire" by Graham Young, Birmingham Post, 29 January 2015; quote:"After marrying journalist Celia Ballantyne in 1974 ..." The couple have one daughter."Bowing Out Gracefully". Cotswold Life, 15 May 2015