Neil Brand

Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for nearly 40 years, regularly in London at the Barbican and BFI National Film Theatres, throughout the UK and Ireland and at film festivals around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, Israel, Scandinavia, Georgia, Ukraine, throughout Europe. In Italy, he has played the Bologna, Aosta, Bergamo and Pordenone festivals where he has inaugurated the School of Music and Image to teach up-and-coming young pianists about silent film accompaniment.

Neil has a very fruitful relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra which has resulted in London and British Council-sponsored international performances of his acclaimed orchestral score for Hitchcock’s silent BLACKMAIL (commissioned by Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna), the BBCSO / Barbican commission to score Asquith’s silent UNDERGROUND, (released to great acclaim theatrically and on Blu-Ray/DVD by the BFI), Chaplin's EASY STREET (released on DVD/Blu-Ray) and Fairbanks’s ROBIN HOOD. Last Christmas saw the premiere of his new BBCSO Concert Drama THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, starring Mark Gatiss and Sanjeev Baskhar, which was filmed by BBC4 for transmission at Christmas. His most recent scores are for Shackleton’s SOUTH (January 22) Hitchcock's THE LODGER, and Jackie Coogan’s OLIVER TWIST (premiered by Ben Palmer and the Covent Garden Symphonia).

Neil is also a prolific writer, his recent critically-acclaimed projects being THE HAUNTING OF MR JAMES, starring Mark Gatiss, THE LE FANU BALLADS starring Paul Chahidi and the three-part thriller WAR OF WORDS about international disinformation and weaponised narrative. He is the author of many articles for Sight and Sound, BBC Magazines and other periodicals as well as broadcasting regularly about music on Radios 3 and 4.

Recently he has toured throughout the UK and abroad with his hilarious and touching one-man-show AN EVENING WITH LAUREL AND HARDY. Neil is well-known as a TV presenter on BBC4 with his hugely successful series' SOUND OF CINEMA, THE MUSIC THAT MADE THE MOVIES (2013), SOUND OF SONG (2015), SOUND OF MUSICALS (2017), SOUND OF MOVIE MUSICALS (2018), and most recently the acclaimed SOUND OF TV (2020). These are repeated regularly and are the staple of school and college courses.

He is a regular guest presenter on the BBC’s Proms coverage, Radio 4's ADD TO MIXTAPE and SOUL MUSIC, is a Fellow of Aberystwyth University and a Member and Visiting Professor of the Royal Academy of Music where he also teaches on the Piano course, was awarded the BASCA Gold Badge in 2016 and is considered one of the finest improvising piano accompanists in the world.