Benjamin Rowarth

Composer

Winner of the NCEM Composers Award (2012) and Leeds International Film Festival Best Documentary Soundtrack (2013), Ben Rowarth has received numerous commissions and international performances, including Merton College Oxford (2014), York Minster (2015) and The Tower of London (2017). Following commissions for extended orchestral works from the Edinburgh Incidental Orchestra and Durham University Symphony Orchestra, Ben has also composed two live soundtracks for plays receiving exceptional reviews. His extended ensemble work The Turn has received multiple repeat performances since its premiere in 2016; its first recording has just been awarded the BBC Music Magazine ‘Choice Disc’ for March 2018 in the Choral and Song category.

Ben has been commercially recorded by ORA, The Rodolfus Choir and The Fieri Consort. His work has also received regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 by performers including The Tallis Scholars. His most recent commission, The short walk of a madman, a thirty-minute piece for eight solo voices, was recorded earlier this year by The Fieri Consort. Ben is currently working on commissions from Ensemble XY and The Fulham Camerata, where he holds the position of Composer in Residence.

Ben began his musical life as a chorister at Hexham Abbey where he later went on to sing bass and became organ scholar in 2009. Following undergraduate and postgraduate music degrees at Durham and York Universities, Ben now performs regularly as a baritone soloist, recently playing the role of Sarastro in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galetea and Plutone in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with ensembles including Britten Sinfonia, The OAE, I Fagiolini and The BBC Singers.

Following his Organ Scholarship at Hexham Abbey Ben went on to become Interim Director of Music at University College, Durham in 2011. Having also spent time conducting University College Orchestra in Durham and guest conducting a number of choirs in the North East and around London, he now manages and conducts his own professional ensemble, Renaissance.