Musical Director

Ben Palmer is Musical Director of the Orchestra of St Paul’s (Covent Garden), Bartholdy Chamber Orchestra and the Manchester-based Sturm und Drang Chamber Orchestra. He is also in demand as a choral conductor and is Musical Director of Kingston Orpheus Choir, South West Essex Choir and The Syred Consort. This season with OSP he will conduct works by Mozart, Haydn, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss and Wagner, as well as continuing their cycle of all nine Beethoven symphonies.

Highlights of 2007 included concerts with Sinfonia of Cambridge (Mahler Symphony No.1 and Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3 with Matthew Trusler), Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra (Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 and Dvořák Cello Concerto with Oliver Coates in Tewkesbury Abbey), Walton Façade in August 2007 for Dartington International Summer School (with William Sitwell, Edith's great-nephew, reciting), Stravinsky The Soldier’s Tale and Cecilia McDowall The Night Trumpeter in St James’, Piccadilly, and a sell-out performance of Beethoven Symphony No. 5 and Mozart Requiem with OSP and the choir Vox Cordis in Covent Garden.

He recently returned from a two-week tour of China as Assistant Conductor to the Amadeus Orchestra, which included a concert broadcast live on national television on New Year's Day. Plans for 2008 include a re-invitation to conduct Sinfonia of Cambridge, The Dream of Gerontius with Forest Philharmonic Orchestra at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, Mozart Die Zauberflöte for Pimlott Foundation Opera Series, Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition with Suffolk Sinfonia in St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet and Brahms Symphony No. 4 with Beccles Chamber Orchestra, and a re-invitation to conduct at Dartington International Summer School. Orchestra of St Paul's make their professional debut in August, performing the final concert of the 2008 Budleigh Salterton Festival in Devon; The Soldier’s Tale and Façade, with celebrity reciters Richard Baker and Katie Derham.

Other ensembles he has conducted include Britten Sinfonia (as assistant to Edward Higginbottom), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (as assistant to Peter Wiegold), Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra (as rehearsal conductor for Alexander Shelley), Churchgate Sinfonia, Birmingham Symphonic Brass, Surrey Sinfonietta, Camden Chamber Orchestra, MoEns, Seychelles International Festival Orchestra, and the ensembles and choirs of Birmingham University. His opera experience includes performances of Le nozze di Figaro for Birmingham University Summer Festival Opera, and The Rake’s Progress and Die Zauberflöte for Dartington Festival Opera. He has conducted orchestral concerts throughout the UK and in Hungary, Germany, Poland, the Seychelles and China.

He graduated in 2003 with first class honours in music from the University of Birmingham, where he also completed an MPhil in composition with Vic Hoyland. In September 2005 he undertook a year’s study with Head of Composition Simon Bainbridge at the Royal Academy of Music. He has received bursaries and scholarships to study conducting with Diego Masson on the Advanced Conducting Course at Dartington International Summer School.

In 2004 his chamber work Volatile Substances was premiered by BCMG under Diego Masson. (“It was a display of music’s sheer vitality and variety of colour” The Times). He has received commissions from the National Saxophone Choir of Great Britain, Bury St Edmunds Festival, The Kenneth Page Foundation, Churchgate Sinfonia and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts. In March 2006 his orchestrations were performed by ensemble The Fibonacci Sequence in the Royal Albert Hall.

For more information, please visit:

www.benpalmer.net