Benjamin Draper enjoys a varied career as a conductor and cellist. He is currently Co-Artistic Director and Conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Academy Orchestra, and Co-Founder of Hive Sinfonia. Ben has conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales for side-by-side workshops and has worked with numerous youth and amateur ensembles. He is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, where he obtained a Master’s Degree at Distinction, and as of September 2025 he will be completing a Master’s of Music in Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London.

Ben’s teachers have included Toby Purser, Peter Stark, Howard Williams, Mark Heron and Clark Rundell. He has conducted in masterclasses with Antony Hermus, Ludovic Morlot, Alpesh Chauhan, David Hill and Sir Mark Elder, and is looking forward to participating in future classes with Martyn Brabbins and Vassily Patrenko amongst many others. He has taken placements with the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras as Assistant Conductor, working closely with conductors including Domingo Hindoyan, Ben Gernon, Mark Wigglesworth, Anja Bihlmaier and John Storgårds.

Ben works extensively in outreach and with youth orchestras, recently with Nottingham Youth Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and the Chetham’s School of Music Orchestras. He has additionally worked with community orchestras and choirs across the country.

As a teacher he works at Chetham’s School of Music, and previously at Lancing College, where he was Visiting Teacher of Cello and a coach in chamber music. In 2025 he was appointed as Cello Teacher at Our Ladies’ Abingdon, a role that he was unfortunately unable to take on due to the School’s closure. In July 2023, Ben received a scholarship to participate in the inaugural And Other Duties conducting course with Tim Redmond and Karen Ní Bhroin, putting together an education concert in conjunction with leading educators in the field.

As a cellist, Ben studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Petr Prause. He is an experienced orchestral player and chamber musician and has given recitals at venues across the UK. Recent highlights have included playing as rehearsal soloist in Schumann’s Cello Concerto with Horsham Symphony Orchestra, and competing as a semi-finalist at the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra’s Senior Concerto Competition. Before studying in Manchester, Ben was an undergraduate at Cardiff University, where he won first prize in the University Soloist Competition, and the Neville John String Prize.

With a particular interest in new music, Ben has commissioned and given the premieres of dozens of new pieces for the cello, and conducted many premieres for orchestra and ensemble. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, he facilitated an online concert series alongside colleagues at the RNCM, where he performed numerous pieces of new music alongside well known solo cello works in the repertoire.