Benjamin Wallfisch

Conductor

Biography

Benjamin Wallfisch’s wide-ranging career as conductor and composer has seen him on the podium leading orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony at venues including the Hollywood Bowl, Sydney Opera House and Royal Festival Hall. He has collaborated, recorded and performed his music with artists including Lang Lang, Herbie Hancock and Yuja Wang, and has over 50 concert music commissions to his name from organizations including London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata.

Associate Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra from 2003-2007, Benjamin has conducted and recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia and has performed in venues such as the Barbican, Cadogan Hall, Royal Festival Hall and St. George’s Bristol in the UK. In 2005 he made his Australian debut conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a series of critically acclaimed live broadcast Gala performances at the Sydney Opera House, and in 2009 he made his debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. Other guest conducting highlights have included the Bavarian Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre de Bretagne, Tivoli Symphony Orchestra, and an appearance Mecklenburg Festival with the Weimar Staatskapelle.

Read more

Recent News

Reviews

“Benjamin Wallfisch steers the orchestra with finely honed lucidity; he prefers vigour over menace, galvanic climaxes radiating a cascading kaleidoscopic refraction.”

Bloch Society Newsletter

“Benjamin is outstanding in Epiphanie, where the intricate, Debussyan instrumentation is exquisitely textured, and the orchestral partnership is subtle and nuanced. “

Joanne Talbot

The Strad

More Reviews

“Benjamin Wallfisch steers the orchestra with finely honed lucidity; he prefers vigour over menace, galvanic climaxes radiating a cascading kaleidoscopic refraction.”

Bloch Society Newsletter, September 2014

“Benjamin is outstanding in Epiphanie, where the intricate, Debussyan instrumentation is exquisitely textured, and the orchestral partnership is subtle and nuanced. “

Joanne Talbot, The Strad, April 2014

“Under the baton of guest conductor Benjamin Wallfisch, suitably pared down in size to fit the period instrumentation, the orchestra still produced a full and balanced sound, with sterling precision and delightful quality. Haydn’s famous Surprise Symphony, with its lightness and musical humor [was] beautifully interpreted.”

Rabbi Baruch Cohon, www.jewishjournal.com

“Wallfisch’s monumental approach lent LACO’s rendering of the composer from Bonn’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major a big-boned Beethovenian luster, rather than its oft misplaced categorization as a last nostalgic gesture toward the classicism of Haydn and Mozart. The work’s rhetoric and its textures were handled well — the winds and brass had a field day — and every tempo seemed gauged perfectly. The performance confirmed this sometimes overlooked symphony as just one temperamental step away from the Eroica that was to follow a couple of years later. Performing it, LACO sounded a lot like its older and heftier counterpart at Disney Hall. “

Rodney Punt, LA Opus, 30 November 2012 

“Wallfisch conducted with a grand gesture and intensity. […] His conducting and interpretation of Beethoven’s Symphony No.2, was a special pleasure. The woodwinds and brass performed their solos with clarity and style, as did the string section. At one point, Wallfisch put down the baton, and using his hands shaped phrases and dynamics playfully in the air. The audience responded with a very warm applause and many bravos for the young conductor and the orchestra. “

Ahdda Shur, LA Examiner, November 12, 2012 

“The youthful vehemence of Wallfisch inspired the orchestra to unusually brilliant, almost unbridled playing.”

Hamburg Abendblatt