Mark Bennett

Mark Bennett won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied with Michael Laird. Whilst there he was awarded the Royal College Brass prize and also became interested in the natural trumpet and baroque performance practice. Since then he has been involved in many different types of music making, including playing principal trumpet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Between 1990 and 2000, Mark was a professor at the Royal Collage of Music, teaching both modern and baroque trumpet.    He has performed and toured extensively with many period instrument orchestras and ensembles, including the English Concert, London Brass and Baroque Brass of London, as well as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and The English Baroque Soloists. He has worked with some of the world's leading conductors, including Esa Pekka Salonen, Claus Tennstedt, Franz Bruggen, Sir Roger Norrington, William Christie, Ton Koopman Iona Brown, Christopher Hogwood, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Herreweghe, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner    Mark played lead trumpet in the West-End production of Cats for the last 2 years of its London run, and has also played on over one hundred feature films, including Shakespeare in Love and Stargate.
Mark has made many solo recordings on both the modern and the baroque trumpets. These include concertos by Haydn, Fasch, Vivaldi and Telemann, all with Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert for Deutsche Gramophone archive. He has recorded 2 solo recordings with the Purcell Quartet: A Purcell collection and Biber’s Sonatae Tam Aris Quam Audis Sevientes.    Mark has recorded Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto seven times: the first time when with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields he was just 21, and subsequently with enembles including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hanover Band and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. For ten years Mark was a member of London Brass, where he recorded many solo brass pieces. Including works by Marini, Gabrieli and Purcell.
In the last ten years Mark has built a fruitful relationship with Norway, working with the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra, the Oslo Baroque Orchestra and as soloist with Terje Tønnesen and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. He has also appeared in the Oslo Chamber Music Festival playing Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto. Conducting has also become a more important part of his musical life, with invidations to lead Orchestras and wind bands in Norway such as NRK Radio Orchestra, MiN Ensemble, Den Norske Blaseensemblet and Kongelige Norske Marinenes Musikkorps amongst others.