About us

MEET THE ORCHESTRA   |   ARTISTIC DIRECTOR   |   PATRON

Covent Garden Sinfonia is firmly established as one of London’s most dynamic and versatile chamber orchestras. Under the baton of Founder and Artistic Director Ben Palmer, since 2007 the orchestra has been developing a reputation for imaginative programming and exciting, stylish performances. Resident at the famous Actors’ Church, St Paul’s in Covent Garden, the orchestra performs regularly at London’s leading concert venues, including Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall and Milton Court. 

Based around a core of principal players, CGS adapts to each project, ranging in size from a small ensemble to a full symphony orchestra of 70 or more. Covent Garden Sinfonia is one of the UK’s foremost orchestras specialising in the performance of music live to film, with recent screenings including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Psycho, Casablanca, The Gold Rush (and other Chaplin shorts), Under the Skin, Peter and the Wolf, The Snowman, and the world premieres of Neil Brand’s scores for Oliver Twistand The Lodger. The orchestra’s recordings include works by Max Richter, Peteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt with violinist Fenella Humphreys on Rubicon Classics (selected as BBC Music Magazine’s monthly Concerto Choice album), a disc of Antonio Lotti with chamber choir The Syred Consort on the Delphian label (chosen as BBC Radio 3’s Record Review “Disc of the Week” and as one of Presto Classical’s Top Ten discs of 2016), and an album of music for strings by Elgar, Malcolm Arnold (both in arrangements by David Matthews) and Robert Simpson for SOMM. Recently the orchestra recorded Neil Brand’s soundtrack for the Ernest Shackleton epic South for a British Film Institute Blu-ray release, and in January 2022 gave the live premiere at the BFI IMAX in London.

Past seasons have included appearances at the Proms at St Jude’s, Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, the English Music Festival, the Barbican Cinema, Cinecity (the Brighton Film Festival), the Roundhouse, the Everyman Cinema Muswell Hill, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The Apex in Bury St Edmunds, LSO St Luke’s, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Covent Garden Sinfonia has worked with such acclaimed soloists as Carolyn Sampson, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Andrew Staples, Steven Osborne, and, as both composer and pianist, David Owen Norris. The orchestra’s patron is Sir Roger Norrington, one of the world’s leading experts in historical performance.