Neil Percy

Principal Percussion

Member since 1990, Professor at the Royal Academy of Music

‘I studied at Chetham’s from age eleven and not long after encountered the LSO for the first time with a BBC André Previn’s Music Night broadcast. I was totally hooked and said there and then: ‘that’s what I want to do and that’s the orchestra I want to do it with’! I’ve been incredibly lucky since then to live my musical dreams.’

Neil Percy is the longest serving Principal Percussion of the LSO and has been Head of Timpani and Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music since 2000. He has worked closely with many major artists and conductors and as a soloist with Sir Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, François-Xavier Roth, Karl Jenkins, Ravi Shankar, Kent Nagano and Elgar Howarth. He has also worked closely with many composers for over 150 film scores – notably John Williams, James Horner, Patrick Doyle, Trevor Jones and Alexandre Desplat with their music for films such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, Braveheart, Notting Hill, Twilight: New Moon and Unbroken – and with major pop and jazz artists. He is the Zildjian cymbals artist in residence, a Yamaha drums and keyboards artist and an artist for Evans Drumheads and Freer Mallets.