Welcome to Ben England’s website.
Ben is an internationally renowned conductor, educator and innovator, who has received global acclaim for his pioneering work with online music-making. During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, Ben founded homechoir – a new way of learning, singing and performing music in a safe and entertaining manner whilst social distancing. Homechoir is a free choir for everyone, and you can take part here: https://homechoir.org, or by visiting the YouTube Channel via this link: www.youtube.com/c/homechoir
In October 2020, Ben was honoured with the British Empire Medal by Her Majesty The Queen in the Birthday Honours as one of 400 heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ben has since been nominated for and received multiple awards and commendations, including a Commendation by the Royal Philharmonic Society in December 2020, the award for “Kantele of the Year” from the Finnish Kantele Association Kanteleliito, a nomination for the Music and Drama Education Awards “Inspiration Award” in 2022 and the University of Bristol Alumni Award for Community Engagement and Impact 2022.
Following the success of the Quarantine Choir, Ben was appointed Musical Director of the Self-Isolation Choir (founded by inspirational business leader Mark Strachan) which in 2022 has grown to one of the largest choirs in the world. Their inaugural project Messiah at Home was produced with some of the world’s greatest musicians including Laurence Cummings, Carolyn Sampson and Jennifer Johnston and gained international attention. Messiah at Home was featured on the national BBC Evening News, all the BBC radio stations, NHK (Japan) CBS (USA) and many more – and has become part of the official Wikipedia entry for Messiah. The choir has grown to 12,000 strong and has recorded such amazing works as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and Allegri’s Miserere – working with the world-famous choir Tenebrae and their conductor, Nigel Short. Ben conducted the Self-Isolation Choir in the World Premiere of Still, Still the Night by Patrick Hawes in December 2020, and their version of Hawes’ Quanta Qualia was played on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.
The choir has since changed its name to Choir of the Earth and has performed dozens more great works.
You can read more here: Choir Of The Earth
Ben is also the Musical Director of the University of the West of England Singers (click here for information) and the Nailsea Concert Orchestra (click here for more)