Ashley Solomon enjoys a successful career as a soloist, chamber musician and guest director in the UK, across Europe as well as the Americas, Far East and Australia. He is the director of Florilegium, the baroque ensemble he co-founded in 1991 and has made close to 40 recordings with them, many of which have garnered international awards. They have given over 1,600 performances over the years, and more than 90 of these have been at London’s Wigmore Hall.
As a soloist, he has performed worldwide, including concertos in the Sydney Opera House, Esplanade (Singapore), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Konzerthaus (Vienna), Beethoven-Haus (Bonn) and Frick Collection (New York).
He also records as a solo artist with Channel Classics and his recording of the complete Bach’s Flute Sonatas was voted the best overall version of these works on either modern or period flute by Gramophone Magazine (February 2017): “Solomon’s luminous tone and unfussy command of the complicated melodies conflate into something utterly beautiful. Slow movements are soulful in their infinite variety, fast ones are clever and with a wealth of invention behind them.”
In recent years he has been involved in a unique recording project using a private collection of 17th and 18th century flutes. To date he has released 3 volumes in the Spohr Collection series involving 27 rare and original 1-keyed baroque flutes made of ivory, boxwood, ebony and porcelain. This project has given new insight into the sound world of European flute makers in the baroque period.
Since 2003 he has been training vocalists and instrumentalists in Bolivia, working on the remarkable collection of music held in archives by the Moxos and Chiquitos Indians. He formed Arakaendar Bolivia Choir in 2005 and Arakaendar Baroque Orchestra in 2007 and has directed them in concerts at major international festivals. In 2008 he was one of the first Europeans to receive the prestigious Bolivian Hans Roth Prize given in recognition of the enormous assistance he has given to the Bolivian musicians, their presence on the international stage and the promotion and preservation of this music.
Combining a successful career across both theory and practice, Ashley is also Head of Historical Performance at London’s Royal College of Music, having been appointed a professor in 1994. In 2014 he was awarded a Personal Chair and in July 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM) and in 2019 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Music (FRCM). Since 2014 he has been working closely with the Royal Collection Trust to curate musical performances in their Royal venues.
He has given masterclasses and lectures worldwide, including The Juilliard School, Yale University, Sydney Conservatorium, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Oslo and Bergen Conservatories, Frankfurt Hochschule and Mozarteum in Salzburg.
He has recently been appointed a Patron of the Continuo Foundation.
Photogallery
