Ben Donnelly

Born in 1983, and originally from West London, Ben grew up in Cambridge, studying the Saxophone and Bassoon under Viv and Jon Halton and playing in just about every ensemble he could find, which saw him touring to Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium and playing at the Edinburgh festival, before completing the Tonmeister degree course in Music & Sound Recording at the University of Surrey in Guildford where he continued to study the saxophone under Peter Nichols. Ben is currently living in East London, and attained QTS through the SCITT (School Centred Initial Teacher Training) course with the London Arts Consortium for teaching music as an academic subject in June 2007.
He is a regular member of LjC a feisty fresh progressive big band formed in 2005, where his compositions and arrangements can regularly be heard, and whose debut album 'Dark Humour' featuring all original material composed and arranged by LjC members past and present, including two of Ben's own collaborations. He has also been heard performing with the Hot Orange Bigband , function band , Groovestone , Ska band The Apocryphalites and playing in front of House DJs in bars and clubs in the London and Cambridgeshire areas.
Ben also has a wealth of experience playing in musical theatre productions, having played in 42nd Street, West Side Story, Sweet Charity, Man of La Mancha, Stop the World I Want to Get Off and Parade, with the Centre Theatre Players, the Nomad Theatre Group, and Fusion Theatre.
Ben plays Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone saxophones, Bassoon, Clarinet and Piano.
As a composer and arranger, Ben has had his music performed across the South of England. Currently he is producing a regular big band output which can often be heard being performed by the London Jazz Collective as well as smaller scale jazz compositions. Ben also writes for saxophone ensembles and wind quintet and has even set Latin motets for SATB choir. In his writing, Ben draws on a number of styles, including late romantic music, modern jazz as well as its more recent derivatives such as funk, hip-hop and house music and also Irish traditional music. In March 2006, Ben was awarded the Joyce Dixey composition prize by the University of Surrey, for his piece for Saxophone Quartet, entitled Inside Today . Ben's composition Boss a one minute virtuosic piano piece has been published in 2006 by Cadenza Music as part of a volume of short piano pieces entitled "One Minute Wonders" - a concept initiated by pianist Clive Williamson in 2003.