Award winning pianist Charles Jones is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA). His major teachers include the late Irwin Freundlich at Juilliard and Clifton Matthews at NCSA. Jones also coached with the late pianists Seymour Lipkin and Claude Frank. During the summer of 2005 Jones was a featured artist at the Rome Festival, Rome, Italy, performing both solo and chamber music. As well he performed with two sopranos. He has received an open invitation to return. Based in New York City, Jones has extended tenures on the piano faculties in NYC at the Abrons Arts Center, the Harlem School of the Arts, where he was assistant chairman of the piano department for several years, and since 2000, SummerKeys in Lubec, Maine. He was also a member of the piano faculty at the Turtle Bay Music School from 2014-winter 2020, and has now joined the Riverside Music Studios piano faculty. He has performed throughout the Eastern USA and has been heard on radio stations WFUV, WQXR, and WNYC in New York. In 2004 Jones received a professional fellowship as well as an early decision award from the Rome Festival.  
A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Jones began playing and studying at an early age and later entered the Preparatory Music Department of Hollins College where he was a student of Thelma Diercks. During this period he received numerous honors including first place state winner in the National Music Teachers Association Competition. He was featured in recitals and on Virginia Public Television, as well as several performances at Hollins College and other colleges in Virginia. While a student at NCSA he was active in chamber music as well as solo performances, including a performance on North Carolina Public Television. He appeared, also during this period, as soloist with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (Charleston, South Carolina) and with the NCSA Orchestra as a result of winning competitions held by those orchestras. Jones graduated from NCSA receiving a Bachelor of Music Degree. He continued his studies at the Juilliard School in New York as a recipient of the Mary Duke Biddle Scholarship as well as a Juilliard Scholarship. He graduated from Juilliard with a Master of Music Degree. Jones has appeared on “Concert Grande” with Bruce Posner (WFUV), “Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute” and “HSA: A Place to Grow” (WQXR) as well as “Young American Artists” and “Around the Town” (WNYC), an opening recital of the “ Sunday Afternoons Live” series of the First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich, Connecticut and participation in presentations at Davis Center of City College, New York. Jones has appeared twice on “Live at Noon” with Dave Bunker on Maine Public Radio and has appeared twice at the Schoodic Arts Festival, Prospect Harbor, Maine. He performed the world premiere of Sonata “Harlem” by Patrick Byers at Steinway Hall in New York on May 31st, 2007. Jones has performed both solo and chamber music throughout his years at SummerKeys, Lubec, Maine. Other recent appearances by Charles Jones include recitals in Atlanta, Georgia, Wolfeboro Friends of Music, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, as well as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.