Trumpeter Jonathan Freeman-Attwood maintains quintuple careers as a performer, educational administrator, producer, writer, and broadcaster. He has been featured on a variety of recordings that are original in concept and draw on unusual repertories.

Freeman-Attwood was born on November 4, 1961, in Woking, a southwestern exurb of London, to Harold Warren Freeman-Attwood, a military officer, and Marigold Diana Sneyd Philips Freeman-Attwood. After attending the Milton Abbey School, he enrolled at the University of Toronto, earning a bachelor's degree in music and first class honors. Freeman-Attwood's master's degree from Christ Church, Oxford, was in musicology, and he has continued to write for both scholarly (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians) and commercial (Gramophone magazine, The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music). He has also been heard on BBC 3 radio. Freeman-Attwood's career at the Royal Academy of Music began in 1991 as dean of undergraduate studies. He launched the school's first music performance bachelor's degree. In 1995, he became vice-principal and director of studies, and in 2008, he was elevated to principal, becoming the 14th individual to hold that position. As principal, he has fostered a collaboration with the Juilliard School in New York and founded the school's Academy recording label, one of the first operated by an educational institution.

Amidst the rigors of a major administrative post, Freeman-Attwood has continued his career as a trumpeter. He has been especially visible on recordings, beginning with the recital The Trumpets That Time Forgot in 2004. That album appeared on the Linn label, with which Freeman-Attwood remained associated as of 2020. He has issued such unusual albums as A Bach Notebook for Trumpet, featuring transcriptions of Bach melodies for trumpet and piano, and Lydia's Vocalises, a collection of trumpet versions of vocalises by Fauré. In 2020, Freeman-Attwood released the album Richard Strauss and the Viennese Trumpet. Freeman-Attwood has also produced more than 250 recordings, including the last volume of the Hyperion label's cycle of William Byrd's complete Latin Church Music in 2010; that album won Gramophone's Record of the Year award. ~ James Manheim, Rovi