Oliver Janes

He was born and brought up in Manchester and started his musical life learning the violin before taking up the clarinet at the age of fifteen. His grandfather, John Fuest, had been Principal Clarinet with the CBSO and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) and convinced Oliver to give the instrument a go. The rest is history!

After two years of lessons with his grandfather, he went to Chetham’s School of Music to study with Rosa Campos-Fernandez. He followed this with four years at the Royal Academy of Music studying with Mark van de Wiel. At the age of twenty-three, Janes was appointed Section Leader Clarinet with the CBSO. While enjoying the variety of the CBSO schedule, he frequently appears as guest Principal with many of the UK’s leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, John Wilson Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé, Philharmonia, Aurora Orchestra, RLPO and BBCNOW. With a keen interest in contemporary music, he plays with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, with whom he has recorded numerous CDs, toured internationally and performed some of the clarinet’s most challenging repertoire. As a soloist, he has performed works by Debussy, Mozart, Strauss, Copland and Brian Ferneyhough’s La Chute d’Icare.

Janes plays on a pair of Buffet DG clarinets which were passed down to him from Angela Malsbury during his time at the Academy.