Ben Mowat

Ben is a professional violinist based in Bristol. Alongside his performance work he is also a composer, producer and teacher. Ben has a high level experience over several genres and specialises in create the perfect set list for your event! With a passion for great music that fits the brief, Ben has a background in classical, pop and Bollywood covers, jazz, celtic folk, tango, and klezmer. As well as a more standard wedding repertoire, Ben can also bring his work in experimental and electronic music into his performance, if desired. He is a loop pedal performer, and can improvise beautiful layers of violin and synths with beatboxing to create atmospheric and at times party dance music! From the age of 7 Ben studied violin under renowned Oxford violin tutor Steward Attwood. During his degree in Popular & World Music at Leeds University, he took advanced violin technique and jazz lessons from the UK's leading jazz violinist, Omar Puente (who plays with UK saxophonist Courtney Pine), graduating in 2006. Since then Ben has performed and toured with many bands and ensembles including his own classical-folk-triphop crossover act, The String Project (2011 - 2017). He also performed with Bristol's Celtic Celidh band Fitty Go-Mash in their early days, Folk rock band Lucky Jim (touring the Isle of Man TT Races for several years), jazz/blues band I've Got My JoMo Working and live drum 'n bass band Phil Oakley & The Allstars. Ben has also performed at Tango dance evenings. In 2014, 15 and 16, Ben toured each summer with Cristal Bal puppet theatre in Toulouse & the Pyrenees region and he also works with Bristol Based circus company Circobatica, creating live and recorded instrumental hip-hop. Ben is a regular attender of Bristol Klezmer folk sessions. In classical music Ben has played with a variety of university and semi-professional orchestras both in Oxford, Bristol and Grenoble. As well as violin performance Ben Mowat now composes music for film, TV and media, in a broad spectrum of genres from classical to popular, including music for choir, string quartet, orchestral and electronic. He has a Distinction for his MA in Composition for Film & TV (Bristol University).