Benedict Hoffnung, Musical Director
Ben enjoys a rich and diverse international career as a timpanist, a percussionist and more recently as a choral director and conductor. As a player he has worked extensively with all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in London, visiting the major music festivals of the world, including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Berlin, and Aix-en-Provence, in addition to many tours of Japan, China, Australia, and the United States. As an acknowledged expert in the performance of baroque and classical music Ben’s experience of the wider symphonic repertoire is also broad and far reaching.
Ben is timpanist with the Academy of Ancient Music and with the London Mozart Players. He regularly plays, records and tours with The London Symphony Orchestra and is Professor of Baroque and Classical Timpani Studies at the Royal Academy of Music. He has conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Mozart Players, and the English Chamber Orchestra.
The Wotton Concert Series, founded by Ben over thirteen years ago, became a regular event in the South West’s musical calendar, and its post-Covid relaunch is eagerly anticipated by its many supporters and friends.
Trustees
Chairman – Rod Marlow
Music Director – Benedict Hoffnung
Communications –
Treasurer – Roger Wyn-Jones
The Venue
The church of St Mary the Virgin has been the centre of Wotton under Edge life for more than 700 years. One of the oldest churches in its area, St. Mary’s was consecrated on the 19 August 1283 by Bishop of Worcester, Godfrey Giffard. It is believed that most of the church as it is today was completed in 1325, some 171 years after its first recorded vicar, Gerinus, in 1154. It is one of five churches in the town of Wotton-under-Edge that together span four denominations.
St Mary’s Church possesses an excellent acoustic and a beautiful organ, reputedly played by Handel himself in its previous location, St Martin in the Fields.
