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Ben Castle

The Late Late NYE Show

Ben did all the orchestral arrangements for The Late Late Show New Years Eve show on RTÉ1. This year he arranged songs for James Blunt, Picture This & Aby Coulibaly with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Cormac McCarthy

This will confuse James Blunt fans as James had a guitarist called Ben Castle in his band for years and they were always getting mixed up for each other. Ben was often asked by JB fans in around the world if he could tell James to play certain songs and the other Ben was presumably incessantly asked what saxophone reeds he used.
Ben once turned up to his own gig in Brighton to find a poster outside with the other Ben Castle’s face on.
To add to the confusion, the other BC wrote songs for a Robbie Williams album that Ben played sax on. To avoid confusion, they added his middle name to the liner notes. His middle name is Roy! Confusion cleared up.

Taylors Coffee

Ben wrote the music for the new Taylor’s Coffee advert.

Music Composer - Ben Castle
Music Producer - Luke Fabia
Sound Design & Final Mix - Jack Patterson & Henning Knoepfel
Soundtree Senior Producer - Neil Athale
Agency - Lucky Generals
Director - Björn Ruhmann
Production Company - Smuggler

Diana Ross introduces...

A clip from one of Ben’s recent performances with Diana Ross at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

'An EP' is out - download a track for free.

‘AN EP’ IS A COLLECTION OF PREPOSTEROUS VERSIONS OF CLASSIC JAZZ STANDARDS, WITH GUEST APPEARANCES FROM MATT BERRY, BETH ROWLEY AND ROY CASTLE.

The band is comprised of long-term collaborators and friends, Mark Edwards, Tim Harries, Troy Miller and many others.

Listen
Free Download - Can’t Take My Eyes Off you

And the Grammy goes to...

Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story has won the Grammy for best music film.
Ben and Paul Pilot scored Ryan Suffern & Frank Marshall’s excellent Sony Pictures film.

'Cut Loose - A Lesson in Jazz'

The long awaited single from the preposterous Jazz collective ‘Ben Castle and the Blah Street Band’ is finally here and features the distinctive voice of Matt Berry, explaining definitively what Jazz actually is.

 
Listen here

Gregory Porter - All Rise

Ben wrote the brass arrangements for ‘Mister Holland’ and ‘Long List Of Troubles’ from Gregory Porter’s new album ‘All Rise’, out now on Blue Note.

Staged

staged.jpg

Ben and his bass clarinet are featured in Alex Baranowski’s soundtrack to Staged on BBC.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen star as two actors whose West End play has been put on hold due to Covid-19, but whose director has persuaded them to carry on rehearsing online.
The whole series is up on the BBC iPlayer now

So What / Blind Date

If you leave a human in lockdown for long enough, they will eventually do a mashup of So What and Blind Date.

Magic is Real

Ben co-wrote the music for the latest Just Eat advert with Luis Almau at Soundtree Music and arranged the Big Band score.

Sgt Pepper in Paris

Click HERE for the film of Sgt Pepper being played in it's entirety at Philharmonie in Paris by Ed Harcourt, Steve Mason, Pete Doherty, Carl Barât and Gaz Coombes with Ben on woodwinds, sax and alarm clock.

Spacebomb at the Barbican

Spacebomb-Revue-2017-1-1.jpg

Ben will be part of the Spacebomb house band at the Barbican on 6th October 2017. It will be hosted by Matthew E White and feature performances by Matthew, Natalie Prass, Foxygen, Bedouine, Mike Scott, Slow Club and many more.

Click here for more details

Jazzwise review

Mark & Ben at The Verdict

Lovely Jazzwise review of Ben and long time collaborator Mark Edwards' first duo experiment at The Verdict in Brighton. A "wholly unpredictable, entirely improvised journey through sound". There will be more.

Click here to read the full review

Cat Laughs

Ben wrote the music for this video for the brilliant Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy Festival.