Ben Castle

Ben was born in Buckinghamshire, UK. He is the youngest son of the UK television personality and musician, Roy Castle and his wife Fiona. A noteworthy clarinet and saxophone player from an early age, by 13, Ben had achieved distinction in his Grade 8 clarinet exam. Within two years, he had joined the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. At 17 he left school, and enrolled in the one-year Post-Graduate Jazz Course at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama the following year. "There was always music around the house," he recalls. "My dad was very much into the classic crooners and jazz trumpet players. My brother was into early Genesis, which got me into the rock side of things. Then I saw The Police on the telly, and Madness, and then I became completely obsessed with Deep Purple". A switch flicked on, when, at the age of 13, his dad took him to see drummer Buddy Rich at London's famous jazz venue, Ronnie Scott's. "The drumming was obviously amazing, but it was when I heard sax player Steve Marcus, who was in Buddy's band, that I knew music was something I had to do." Ben has gone on to become a successful and award-winning composer, arranger, songwriter, producer, and saxophone and clarinet player. He has worked with a vast array of artists across many genres, including Gregory Porter, Radiohead, Blur, Amy Winehouse, Quincy Jones, Matthew Herbert, Little Simz, Stan Tracey, Elton John, Paloma Faith, George Michael, Matthew E White, Grace Jones, Lianne La Havas, Sting, Marlena Shaw and Jools Holland, and has featured on countless film and TV scores for top composers, including John Williams, Hans Zimmer, David Arnold, James Newton Howard, Stephen Sondheim, Gabriel Yared, and David Brent among many others. He also features heavily on the soundtracks for the Netflix series 'Sex Education', BBC's 'Staged', and Channel 4's 'Toast of London'. With Ben's love and grasp of so many styles of music and his ability to blur the genre lines, he has become a sought-after composer. He has written music for film, TV, theatre, and adverts, as well as music and songs for his own projects, and for other artists. He scored the Grammy Award winning film, 'Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story' with Paul Pilot for Sony Pictures, directed by Emmy nominee Ryan Suffern and five-time Academy Award nominee Frank Marshall. He contributed some additional music to Aoife Crehan's 2019 film 'The Last Right', and the BBC's adaptation of Dolly Alderton's book 'Everything I Know About Love' and was the composer and musical director for 'Double Feature' at The National Theatre in London. The song 'Wrapped Around Your Little Finger', written with Beth Rowley for Lone Scherfig's 2009 film 'An Education', made it onto the Oscar nomination shortlist. He has also written the music for many successful advertisement campaigns for Samsung, Vodafone, Just Eat, Bank of Ireland, 123.ie and the music he composed for the Lurpak Freestyle advert with Soundtree Music won BTAA Craft, Shots, Clio, and Music + Sound awards. His own albums are an eclectic mixture of all the things he doesn't get to play elsewhere, and the influences he's picked up along the way. 'The Heckler' from his 2004 record 'Blah Street' won first prize in the International Songwriting Competition jazz category, judged by Pat Metheny. 2023's 'An EP' from Ben Castle and the Blah Street Band, is a collection of preposterous versions of jazz standards, and features guest appearances from Matt Berry, Beth Rowley and Roy Castle. His other band, The Tombola Theory play original pop music, inspired by 1930's traditional jazz and were described by Jamie Cullum on his BBC Radio show as 'Punk Trad'.