Jonathan Kelly

Jonathan was born in 1969 and educated at Magdalen College School, Brackley. He won a County Music Scholarship, which enabled him to study with Helen Armstrong. While at school he played in the National Youth Orchestra and later in the European Community Youth Orchestra, where he was the first recipient of the Mick Baines Award.

He studied history at Cambridge and then oboe with Celia Nicklin at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the President’s Prize. Further studies were undertaken in Paris with Maurice Bourge.

In 1991 he was appointed Principal Oboe in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, under Simon Rattle, where he remained until 2003, when he was appointed Solo (Principal) Oboe with the Berliner Philharmoniker, also under Rattle.

Image credit: Monika Rittershaus