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Ben Palmer is Musical Director of the Orchestra of St Paul’s, 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.
In addition to a thriving concert series in Covent Garden, the Orchestra of St Paul's (OSP) makes its professional debut in August, performing the final concert of the 2008 Budleigh Salterton Festival in Devon. The concert features two major works: Stravinsky's The Soldier’s Tale and Walton's Façade, with celebrity reciters Richard Baker and Katie Derham. Later that month OSP travels to Framlingham in Suffolk for a semi-staged production of Die Zauberflöte for the Pimlott Foundation Opera Series. In October OSP has been invited to give yet another performance of Façade, this time in Scarborough in North Yorkshire. The performance celebrates the opening of a new gallery at Woodend, the former home of the Sitwell family in Scarborough, by Crescent Arts. Reciters for this performance will be William Sitwell, Edith's great-nephew, and Pippa Longworth. OSP's 2007/08 season has included works by Mozart, Haydn, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss and Wagner, as well as the continuation of the orchestra's cycle of the nine Beethoven symphonies.
Ben Palmer's recent engagements include concerts with the Sinfonia of Cambridge, Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra (both re-invitations), Syred Sinfonia, Façade at Dartington International Summer School and The Soldier’s Tale in St James’s, Piccadilly. In January he returned from a two-week tour of China as Assistant Conductor to the Amadeus Orchestra, which included a live televised New Year’s Day concert, and two performances in one of the world’s newest concert halls, the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre. Plans for 2008 include The Dream of Gerontius with Forest Philharmonic Orchestra at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, 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 Dartington International Summer School. Concerts in 2009 include Handel's Messiah, a complete performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio with The Syred Consort and Sinfonia and a semi-staged production of Così fan tutte with OSP.
He has worked with a number of outstanding soloists including Matthew Trusler (violin), Yuko Inoue (viola), Oliver Coates (cello), Louise Hayter (oboe), Heidi Sutcliffe (trumpet), Thomas Osborne (trumpet), Angela Barnes (horn) and George von Bergen (baritone). 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 and the Seychelles International Festival Orchestra. 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. His tour with the Amadeus Orchestra to China was generously supported by The Tillett Trust.
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