Ben Parry
b. 1965
British
Summary
Ben Parry has a successful career as a composer, conductor, arranger, singer and producer. He has made over 300 recordings and his compositions and arrangements are published by Edition Peters, OUP, Stainer & Bell and Faber Music. He has held a number of prestigious posts as Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Assistant Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, Director of Junior Royal Academy of Music and Director of Music at St Paul's School, London. Ben is currently Director of the professional choir London Voices, with whom he performed across the world and collaborated on soundtracks of major films such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and The Hobbit.
Biography
Ben Parry has a successful career as a composer, conductor, arranger, singer and producer. He has made over 300 recordings and his compositions and arrangements are published by Edition Peters, OUP, Stainer & Bell and Faber Music. He has held a number of prestigious posts as Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Assistant Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, Director of Junior Royal Academy of Music and Director of Music at St Paul's School, London. Ben is currently Director of the professional choir London Voices, with whom he performed across the world and collaborated on soundtracks of major films such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and The Hobbit.
Ben studied music at Cambridge University, where he sang with King’s College Choir. Later he was a member The Swingle Singers, with whom he toured the world and performed with some of the greatest musicians, including Pierre Boulez, Stephane Grapelli and Dizzy Gillespie. He composed and arranged over fifty pieces for the group. For eight years he lived in Scotland where he co-founded the Dunedin Consort and was also Director of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus, Director of Choral Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), and conductor of Haddo House Opera. He has conducted many of the UK’s foremost orchestras and choirs, including the Academy of Ancient Music, BBC Singers and Concert Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, King’s College Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. As a singer, he has worked with the Gabrieli Consort, Schütz Choir, Taverner Consort and Tenebrae, as well as on over 200 film and TV soundtracks.
He collaborates regularly with author and lyricist Garth Bardsley. Their choral compositions have been performed by the BBC Singers, Tenebrae, Voces8 and church and cathedral choirs worldwide, as well as the BBC Proms and on BBC Radio 3. Commissions include BBC Singers, Norwich Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Aldeburgh Music and Washington DC Cathedral Choral Society.