Renowned for his work alongside Peter Jackson and Howard Shore on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Mark Willsher moves seamlessly between roles as producer, sound engineer, mixer, and supervising music editor. His expertise spans a wide range of genres, from film to classical, folk, and hip-hop. Recent projects include Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim by New Line Cinema (Composer: Stephen Gallagher), Netflix’s animated feature Ultraman Rising (Composer: Scot Stafford), and the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Adriana Mater by Kaija Saariaho (Music Director: Esa-Pekka Salonen), which earned him a Grammy® Award for Best Opera Recording as mixing engineer.
Alongside his production work, Willsher is actively involved in audio education as both a guest lecturer and visiting faculty. He has lectured at The Peabody Institute, MIT, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and was guest faculty in audio at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada for seventeen years. Since 2023, he has been a guest faculty member at the Verbier Festival Academy. He is also part of the panel of immersive audio experts for the ECHO Project, a collaborative research initiative on 3D microphone array techniques for orchestral recording, supported by major industry sponsors.
With a background in music performance and a deep understanding of all technical aspects of the recording process, Willsher’s guiding philosophy is to create recordings that allow listeners to be fully immersed in the emotional experience—free from awareness of speakers, microphones, editing, or mixing. His personal studio is a fully equipped immersive mixing space with a hybrid analogue/digital workflow.
Since 2016, Mark Willsher has lived in North London with his wife, violinist Cecily Ward, and their two Portuguese Water Dogs, Francie and Lando.
