Mark Willsher
Known for his work with Peter Jackson and Howard Shore on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Mark Willsher is equally at home as producer, engineer, mixer, and supervising music editor. His work spans a broad array of genres, from feature films to classical, folk, and hip-hop. Recent projects include New Line Cinema’s ‘Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim’ (Composer: Stephen Gallagher), Netflix’s animated feature ‘Ultraman: Rising’ (Composer: Scot Stafford), and the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Kaija Saariaho’s Opera Adriana Mater (Music Director: Esa-Pekka Salonen) – for which (as mixing engineer) he won a Grammy® Award for Best Opera Recording.
Selected Credits
In addition to production work Mark has always been actively involved in audio education as both guest lecturer and guest faculty. He has lectured at The Peabody Institute, MIT, The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and was guest audio faculty at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada for seventeen years. Since 2023 Mark has been guest faculty at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. He is also on the panel of immersive audio experts for the ECHO Project: A collaborative research project on 3D microphone array techniques for orchestral recording, which has broad industry sponsorship.
With a background in music performance, and a deep understanding of all technical aspects of the recording process, Mark’s guiding philosophy is always to be able to step back and be absorbed by recordings on an emotional level – to not be conscious of the speakers, microphones, editing, mixing. His personal studio is a fully equipped immersive mixing space with a hybrid analogue/digital workflow.
Since 2016 Mark resides in North London with his wife, violinist Cecily Ward, and their two Portuguese Water Dogs – Francie & Lando.