Film with Orchestra

Ben Palmer is one of the world’s most sought-after specialists in conducting live to picture. Personally authorised by John Williams to conduct his film scores in concert, and acclaimed by Hans Zimmer as “a masterclass in conducting”, he is in great demand throughout the UK, Germany and further afield. His repertoire spans the entire history of film music, from silent movies (prepared without the aid of any technology, using only visual cues from the screen), to the blockbusters of the present day. In 2022 he made his debut with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducting the first ever live-to-picture concert at the BBC Proms, including the premiere of Earth Symphony, a five-movement work by Iain Farrington, arranged from themes by Hans Zimmer and his team, from the music from Blue Planet II, Planet Earth II, and Seven Worlds One Planet. The concert was heard live on BBC Radio 3, and broadcast on television on BBC Two.

His repertoire of more than 50 films includes many of the great soundtracks by John Williams – the Star Wars trilogy and The Force Awakens, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Harry Potter, Home Alone, Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Raiders of the Lost Ark – as well as Back to the Future, Beauty and the Beast (2017), Brassed Off, Casablanca, Casino Royale, Love Actually, The Pink Panther (European premiere), Pirates of the Caribbean, Psycho, Skyfall, and Under the Skin. Silent films include Fritz Lang’s epic Metropolis, Chaplin’s City Lights, The Gold Rush, The Kid and Modern Times, and the world premieres of Neil Brand’s scores for The Lodger, Oliver Twist, South and Echoes of the North (both of which he orchestrated), and The Winning of Barbara Worth, and Stephen Horne’s The Manxman and Stella Dallas.

He conducted the closing concerts of Le Giornate de Cinema Muto (the world-famous Pordenone Silent Film Festival) in 2019 (The Lodger), 2022 (The Manxman, which he also orchestrated), 2023 (Chaplin’s The Pilgrim and Daan van den Hurk’s Sherlock Jr) and 2024 (Neil Brand’s The Winning of Barbara Worth). He has appeared at La Biennale di Venezia, the Barbican Cinema, CineCity (the Brighton Film Festival), and Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. He is regularly invited to conduct films at the Royal Albert Hall, and has led screenings at such venues as the Royal Festival Hall, Symphony Hall Birmingham, Bridgewater Hall, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg, and the KKL in Luzern. In the studio, he has recorded soundtracks for clients including 20th Century Fox, Hans Zimmer, Bleeding Fingers Music, Christoph Zirngibl, and the BBC.

As well as numerous performances with his own Covent Garden Sinfonia and Babylon Orchester Berlin, he has conducted live orchestral film screenings with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Cinematic Sinfonia, City Light Chamber Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Hallé Orchestra, Hofer Symfoniker, London Mozart Players, Manchester Camerata, Noordpool Orkest, the Orchestras of Opera North and Welsh National Opera, the Philharmonia, Plzenská filharmonie, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Southbank Sinfonia, and Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen. In 2017 he was invited by the Philharmonia Orchestra to assist Vladimir Ashkenazy with a screening of Battleship Potemkin.

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