Mark Pemberton OBE
Mark Pemberton is an experienced consultant in the music industry and the performing arts.
He has managed three editions of Audio Classique, the international gathering of the classical recording industry, and curated Orchestras Now!, the international orchestras conference in Wroclaw, Poland in 2023 and 2025. He has led governance workshops for Arcangelo and Music at Oxford and worked as public affairs consultant for NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association), English Folk Dance & Song Society and Music Mark. Other clients include Newzik, ISM and Cartier.
Mark has been a speaker and panel chair at conferences in the USA, Brazil, China, Japan and across Europe. Most recently he has given keynote speeches at Accord Majeur at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and to the annual conference of the Association of Finnish Orchestras, and chaired panels at the League of American Orchestras conference in Houston and Classical Next in Berlin.
During his 15 years as Chief Executive of the Association of British Orchestras, his achievements included:
- Negotiating with the UK Government to enable orchestras to navigate and survive the Covid-19 pandemic
- Securing Orchestra Tax Relief, creating a vital new income stream for ABO members
- Getting orchestral musicians included on the Home Office Shortage Occupation List
- Launching the All Party Parliamentary Group on Classical Music Growing the ABO Conference into Europe’s largest gathering of the orchestral sector
- Securing a waiver from visa fees for Ukrainian orchestras touring to the UK
