ARRANGING and ORCHESTRATION
With experience and skills in his craft, Mark has a passion for arranging and orchestrating music across a wide variety of musical styles. From small pop/funk horn sections orchestrations and jazz lead sheets to full-scale symphony orchestra arranging.. He is total geek for engraving too — having read so many dodgy charts over the years, he’s fastidious about engraving and excellent part preparation to make other musicians’ lives easier! No-one wants the dots getting the way of making the music happen.
Ethos and background:
Having been on the receiving end of parts being printed-off from the side of the stage prior to soundcheck by other ‘professional’ arrangers/orchestrators (seriously, this happened … twice!) he understands the need for timely delivery and straight communication with clients. No nonsense, just exciting, well-written parts that your musicians will enjoy playing delivered swiftly. As someone who enjoys playing well-crafted arrangements, Mark is keen to give all players some moments to shine and get their teeth stuck into juicy material. No boring viola or bassoon lines just filling the texture here — each player should be inspired by the dots on the page!
He blends his on-the-ground awareness gained from 25-years as a professional player with academic chops, having studied orchestration at post-graduate level with the renowned award-winning UK composer John Pickard at the University of Bristol (and less in-person with three amigos: Adler, Blatter and Rimsky-Korsakov). The outcome is clear and accurate parts ready for your players to deliver the goods first time around. Mark’s tool of choice is the industry-leading scoring software Dorico, but will suck it up and use Sibelius if specially requested — he is fluent and efficient in the use of both.
Recent clients:
Recently, Mark has been engaged as an arranger and orchestrator for Bristol Ensemble, having produced orchestral arrangements of classic rock hits from Queen (it turns out that Brian May solos sound epic on violin!) to reworked pop hits int eh style of Bridgerton for strings, wind and brass. He has also done extensive work arranging and creating bespoke parts for higher education establishments such as BIMM University and Bath Spa University.
Current work:
He is currently arranging, orchestrating and producing an 80s Pop Hits crossover project with Bristol Ensemble featuring a crack team of session band players, vocalists and the orchestra which will be touring selected dates later 2026-2027.
His adaptations of arrangements of Bridgerton string quartet pieces for larger ensmeble, along with the Queen repertoire have been performed by Bristol Ensemble at Vichy Opera House, France, in July 2026 (with Mark behind the drums too, doing his best Roger Taylor impression).
