I am Benjamin Symons a composer, musician and songwriter from the UK. My entrance into music started at a very young age when my father gave me my first CD player and with it, my first 3 CD’s; Meatloaf – Bat Out Of Hell, Phil Collins – Greatest Hits Live and The Commitments – Original Soundtrack. Based on that, I think I was always destined for rock and roll. When I was 11 I started playing acoustic guitar, but quickly transitioned onto electric. I had several lessons when I started out but I never had an interest in really learning the theory behind it, I just wanted to learn how to play my favorite songs.
By the time I was 15 I was done with school and decided to attend The ‘Academy Of Contemporary Music’ (ACM) to study Guitar. The course covered a lot more than just the Guitar as an instrument. We were encouraged to perform live, were taught about what was important when being in a band, simple things like professionalism, being in tune! Around the time of starting at ACM, I also started a metal band called Malefice with a couple of friends. It was fairly typical beginnings, friends playing in our parents’ garage and writing songs. We worked very hard as a band and in the 10 years of being together, we’ve released 3 full length albums and 2 EP’s world wide, played all over the UK, Europe, America, even a show in India and we were fortunate enough to play all the major UK music festivals. We even picked up a Metal Hammer nomination for Best New Band. It became apparent early on that the responsibility of song writing would fall to me. In the earlier days it was more of a group effort but when it came to writing our debut album I stepped up and wrote 90% of the music, and from that point it stayed that way.
Moving away from my life exploring Metal, I began to have an increased interest in classical music and film score. My father had always played classical albums in the car when I was growing up. I got my self a Macbook and a copy of Logic Pro 9 and started experimenting with writing Classical, using Logic’s built in instrument libraries and putting the music I was writing to clips from films and trailers; trying to find my sound in this new musical world.
I find myself composing and writing in almost any spare moment I have and have recently been asked to write music for a few short films “SHIFT” which achieved official selection for Tally Shorts Film Festival and IHL Shorts Film Festival as well as been selected by Madonna as the winner of her Arts For Freedom competition awarding us $10,000 to give to charity. I have also competed works for “The Candidate” and “He’s Gone.” These projects really gave me my first experience in writing music to a film that I was previously totally unaware of. I am now the go to composer for the directors of these films.
My journey is continuing and evolving constantly and every project I work on improves my writing and my depth of understanding of music and film. The software and technology available today has made life as a working composer so much easier and means I can write anywhere and have realistic sounds available at the click of a few buttons.
If you are interested in getting in touch with me regarding a project you are working on, please either contact me through any of the social media icons at the bottom of the page or via email at BenjaminKitSymons@gmail.com