Benjamin Wolf works as a conductor, pianist, composer, singer and academic. He is Musical Director of the Zemel Choir, the Wallace Ensemble, the Rushmoor Choir and the Royal Free Music Society, Choirmaster of Belsize Square Synagogue and a regular conductor of the Quorum Chamber Choir. With the Zemel Choir he has performed at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room and St John’s, Smith Square. In January 2005 he conducted the Zemel Choir in a special edition of the BBC’s Songs of Praise, and in November of the same year he conducted them in their 50th anniversary concert at St John’s, Smith Square. Other projects have included a CD recording and the Zemel Choir's annual festival, Celebrate with Song. Performances outside the UK have included Zemel Choir tours to Europe (2007/2011) and Israel (2009), a Quorum tour to Italy, and visits to the Czech Republic, Sweden and Italy with the Rushmoor Choir. Activities with the Wallace Ensemble (a young, professional chamber orchestra) have included a first CD (recorded in summer 2007), a concert of Israeli/orchestral klezmer music at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the inaugural Wallace Ensemble composition prize, as well as concerts for the Mill Hill Music Club and Belsize Square Synagogue.
Increasingly active as a composer, his work Siren Song (set to a text from Homer’s Odyssey and using ancient Greek modes) has been performed at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, King’s College, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford. A second work in a similar style, entitled Song of Demodocus, received its first performance at the Ekon Festival of Greek Music in June 2009. His first piano concerto, L’Chaim, was performed by The Wallace Ensemble in 2003, while his cello concerto (entitled Etz Chayim), commissioned for the 70th anniversary of Belsize Square synagogue, received its first performance in March 2009, and was performed again in November 2010. He has also written works for the theatre and has composed a number of pieces for both choir and barbershop quartet.
As pianist, he performs with a number of singers and instrumentalists, including cellist Gemma Rosefield, tenor Marc Finer and mezzo-soprano Ruti Halvani. He has also played for cantors Robert Brody, Avromi Freilich and Yitschak Meir Helfgott. As singer, he is founder of the Jewish barbershop quartet, bOYbershop.
He initially studied classics at University College Oxford, following this with study at Trinity College of Music and the music department of King’s College, London. He was awarded a PhD at Royal Holloway (University of London) in 2010. In 2011 he worked in the music departments of both Royal Holloway and Bristol Universities. He is currently working as Senior Visiting Teacher in the Music Department of Bristol University and as Lecturer in Music at Regent's College, London. He is also working on a Royal Holloway project investigating the use of music to accompany silent films.