Born in 1991, Ben's life with music started when he pestered his parents for a violin at age 3. Finally caving into his whining, they bought him two, and he has been screeching away on it ever since.

In high school, under the instruction of Seattle Symphony violinist Michael Miropolsky, Ben made it into the Seattle Youth Symphony and was accepted into New York University as a Violin Performance major. 

 

While studying as a Freshman at NYU with violinist Greg Fulkerson, Ben also began taking lessons from composer Steven Rosenhaus, and fully transferred to the composition department as a Sophomore.  Before graduating in 2014, he had two pieces for full orchestra read and recorded by the NYU Symphony, composed for various small ensembles and several student films, and studied with Riccardo Riccardi in Florence, Italy for a semester.



Ben's music has since been performed in festivals and concerts around the country, including Maine's Atlantic Music Festival. He has written the music for several films, including the documentary "Coming Out" and the short film "Femme," both by filmmaker Alden Peters; "Femme" was recently picked up for a series adaptation. Ben's score for "Sputnik" was a finalist for the 2018 Berlin International Film Scoring Competition.
Recent concert credits include "Collide-o-Scope," a 15-minute work commissioned by the Seattle Youth Symphony for their 2016-2017 season, and being the winner of the Illinois Philharmonic's inaugural Classical Evolve competition; Ben served as the IPO's composer-in-residence for the 2018-2019 season, premiering 3 orchestral works. 

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Ben also holds a Masters Degree in Film Score Composition from the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program at the Seattle Film Institute, where he studied with Emmy award-winner Hummie Mann.
He has an affinity for the outdoors, metal music, and drinking as much coffee as humanly possible. -- Contact