Martyn Ford

Martyn Ford arranged strings on the early Bryan Ferry solo albums. Martyn studied horn at the Royal Academy of Music for four years with the international soloist Ifor James, gaining the highest grades possible for the instrument.
In his fourth year at the Academy, Martyn formed his own symphony orchestra made up of talented music students from the four London music colleges. In 1971 the orchestra, then named the New Sinfonia, gave its first concert at the Royal Albert Hall, to much critical acclaim. Martyn was principal horn.
Eventually the orchestra became known as the Martyn Ford or Mountain Fjord Orchestra, and was immediately in demand for record, film, television, radio and advertising music work, and soon monopolised those sections of the music industry.
Martyn quickly established himself as an arranger, conductor and record producer with an international reputation, working with artists including Phil Collins, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Sir Cliff Richard, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Kate Bush, Toto, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Barclay James Harvest and The Grateful Dead.
Martyn conducted and arranged the "Classic Rock" albums with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Choral Society, winning gold and platinum record awards. He has conducted and recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted, arranged and recorded twice with World, European and British Champions, The Black Dyke Band, one being with Paul McCartney and Wings, whilst the other was an album of McCartney and Wings hits arranged by Martyn. Overseas he has worked with many symphony orchestras including the Suisse Romande, The Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, The South African Broadcasting Corporation's Symphony Orchestra, and the Durban Symphony Orchestra.
Martyn conducted and arranged music for the film "Tommy", working with Ken Russell and Pete Townsend; worked with Sir George Martin, Sir Paul McCartney and Marvin Hamlisch on the "Live and Let Die" movie sound-track; with Sir George Martin again on the "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, conducted his own orchestra in the incidental music for Central Television's "Naturewatch" series; worked with Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice on the original "Jesus Christ Superstar" album, and worked on the television series "Rock Follies".
Martyn appeared on the very first televised "Terry Wogan Show", conducting the orchestra for Phil Collins, and has made several appearances on Top Of The Pops with various artists, and in his own right.
Martyn has conducted The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at the Canterbury Festival, and also recently renewed his association with The Black Dyke Mills Band, conducting them in concert at The Assembly Rooms, Derby with its Music Director James Watson playing solo trumpet.

Now based in London and the East Midlands, Martyn works as a conductor and music director concentrating on the symphonic orchestral repertoire, opera, musicals as well as music for film soundtracks, cinema and television commercials.
Martyn is the principal conductor of The London TeleFilmonic Orchestra (www.telefilmonic.com), London's premier commercial session orchestra, and a market leader in high quality orchestral session music, and with which he recently conducted a recording of the music for Mercedes Benz television and cinema advertisements currently being screened in the US. The orchestra has provided music for such international brand names as Disneyland, British Airways, Volkswagen, Daewoo, Volvo, Cadbury's, Fiat, Guinness, Automobile Association, Thomas Cook, Vauxhall, Citroen, Boots, Ford, Barclays, New York Times, Warner Village, Scottish Widows, BBC TV, Bacardi Rum, Sainsbury's, Mastercard and countless more.
Martyn has twice conducted the orchestra for the Eurovision Song Contest, performing live in front of a television audience estimated at several hundred million.
One of his latest projects is the formation of a freelance symphony orchestra, The Derby Festival Orchestra. Comprising of Midlands based professionals, music teachers, music students and gifted amateurs, it gave its debut concert on June 24th 1995 at The Derby Festival with the renowned international guitarist Nicola Hall playing Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" to great critical acclaim.
Its fourth concert was in January of last year at The University of Derby's International Awards Day Concert in the Assembly Rooms, Derby and featured former BBC Young Musician of the Year, violinist Nicola Loud playing the Mendelssohn Concerto. The concert was a sell-out, and the orchestra had to play three encores!
Martyn has a wealth of experience working in musical theatre. He worked with Cleo Laine at London's Apollo Theatre in "Showboat", and the Palace Theatre in the original stage production of "Jesus Christ Superstar". He has also worked at the Golders Green Hippodrome, London, the home of The Doyle Carte Opera Company and Gilbert and Sullivan, and with Ballet Rambert at the Jeanette Cochrane Theatre, London. He has also worked on productions of "Chess", "Oklahoma", "The Gypsy Baron", "South Pacific", "Carousel", "Camelot", and virtually every Gilbert and Sullivan Opera. Martyn has also conducted the cast and orchestra of the London West End production of "Les Misérables" at the Palace Theatre, London (short-listed for MD), and recently in Birmingham in a performance of "HMS Pinafore" with the orchestra and soloists from the Birmingham Conservatoire.
He has conducted at the London Palladium several times, working with artists such as Marti Caine, Marti Webb, Sacha Distel, Lynsey De Paul, Mike Reid etc.
Martyn has recently been working for Much Loved Productions Ltd. conducting "Viennese Romance" a show starring soloists from English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Sadlers Wells and Opera North and featuring the music of Strauss, Lehar, Romberg and others.
Martyn is Musical Director for the Daley Partnership, a company specialising in Cruise and Corporate Productions.
Martyn is a Music Adviser to The Arts Council of England and East Midlands Arts.

Martyn Ford is credited on the following Roxy Music and Solo Albums