Charlie Howells is a 23 year old British violist and a recent graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in London. He started the violin at the age of 7 and has been playing viola since the age of 13 under the tutelage of Graham Oppenheimer at Chetham’s School Of Music. Being there allowed him to work with such incredible artists as Jennifer Pike, Francis Gouton, Stephan Picard, also playing side by side concerts with the likes of Henning Kraggerud and the Victoria String Quartet. 

Charlie’s principal teachers at RAM were with Jon Thorne and Joshua Fisher, whereas now he is currently with Eivind Ringstad. Charlie has had solo masterclasses with Tabea Zimmerman, Soon-Mi Chung, Clifton Harrison, Hélène Clement, Hartmut Rohde, Martin Outram and Timothy Ridout.

Charlie plays on a Calleva instrument, which has been kindly donated to the Academy by the foundation, currently on loan to him. He has also recently been named a Calleva Scholar, in which his tuition is being kindly funded by the heads of the foundation, Caroline and Stephen Butt. 

Charlie’s recent chamber music accolades include a tour in China with the Westminster string quartet, a collection of concerts in the last year with the Orion (harp) trio, performing the Chigiana Music Festival and Musique à Flaine this summer, and most recently joining the Tunnell Trust with the Allora Ensemble. He has also had chamber music teaching with the likes of Clive Greensmith of the Tokyo quartet, Rainer Schmidt of the Hagen quartet, Johannes Meissl, Yovan Markovitch, Peter Jarusek of the Pavel-Haas Quartet, Lawrence Power, Paul Watkins of the Emerson Quartet, the Endellion Quartet, and the Brodsky Quartet among others.