Christian Jones

Originally from the Staffordshire Moorlands, bass and contrabass trombonist Christian Jones was appointed to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2001, aged twenty, graduating from London’s Royal Academy of Music with First Class Honours the following year. A month later, he joined the Philharmonia Orchestra and spent a decade recording and performing worldwide from Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall. Since relocating to Leeds-based Opera North with his young family in 2012, Christian also teaches at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, where he’s enrolled on a Performance Practice PhD due for completion next year. Underpinning these studies, his YouTube channel features over 100 videos of solo works, technical advice and orchestral and operatic excerpt demonstrations. 

Having performed as a soloist across Europe, in 2021 he gave the world première of the first ever bass trombone concerto commissioned by a professional British orchestra: Benjamin Ellin’s Gresley with the Orchestra of Opera North. A later studio recording features in his debut solo album, Windows, released in 2023 in collaboration with New York Philharmonic principal trombonist Joseph Alessi and Opera North section leader Blair Sinclair. A second smaller-scale album, The Circus Suite, followed in 2024 and Christian is currently fundraising to record works with bass trombone and strings. In November 2025, he accepted an appointment to the Hallé Orchestra and will relocate to Manchester next spring. Away from music, Christian is training to become a Pilates Reformer instructor, having used the discipline to rehabilitate from a potentially career-ending repetitive strain injury in 2014. He also loves family time and being outdoors as a counterpoint to sitting still on stage, usually slightly lost on a soggy Pennine fell run or wild swimming – ideally both!