Robert Ames

Born in Kettering, England, in 1985, Robert Ames trained at the Royal Academy of Music before founding the London Contemporary Orchestra in 2008 with Hugh Brunt, an ensemble of which he became co‑artistic director and co‑principal conductor. A violist, conductor and composer, Robert Ames works across areas linking contemporary music, orchestral writing, music for image and intersections with pop and electronic music. His career spans concert halls, studios and multidisciplinary stages — from the Barbican to the Sydney Opera House, and from Abbey Road to the National Theatre. Leading the London Contemporary Orchestra or on outside projects, he has conducted scores and arrangements associated with artists such as Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Sigur Rós and Hildur Guðnadóttir, while contributing to several film soundtracks, including Phantom Thread, Macbeth, Slow West, Theeb and All Quiet on the Western Front (for the score by Volker Bertelmann). In 2022 Robert Ames also conducted the first BBC Prom devoted to video game music.