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Benjamin Swartz - cello

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Part-Time Faculty
Hunt Hall, Room 113

BMus, Peabody Conservatory
MMus, Royal Academy of Music (LRAM)
BA, MA, Johns Hopkins University (honors, American history)
DAAD Scholar to Heidelberg, Germany (music theory)
Woodrow Wilson Fellow to Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Studies in Baltimore with Alison Wells; in London with Mats Lidström and Jonathan Manson; and in Amsterdam with Anner Bijlsma and Pieter Wispelweij

Cellist Benjamin Swartz has concertized extensively in the United States and Europe with particular emphasis on historically-informed performance and contemporary performance practice. Equally at home on cello, Baroque cello, and viola da gamba, he has gained increasing recognition for multi-instrumental virtuosity spanning the Ars Subtilior to the present day. As a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral player, recent engagements have included Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Berliner Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and Boston Symphony Hall.

As an advocate for 21st-century music, Ben performs regularly with Sound Energy, a dynamic string trio which commissions & performs works by living American composers. An active studio artist, Ben has two dozen film & video game soundtrack credits, including recordings with Bent Knee and Tredici Bacci. His festival credits include Aspen, Tanglewood, Kneisel Hall, Lucerne, Aurora, London Master Classes, and Manchester.

Originally hailing from Richmond, VA, Ben is an honors graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Johns Hopkins University, and Peabody Conservatory. He further studied and researched in Amsterdam as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow (historically-informed performance practice of the Bach Cello Suites with Anner Bijlsma and Pieter Wispelweij) and to Germany as a DAAD Scholar (proportional ratio systems of extended Just Intonation).

A much sought-after teacher and clinician in the Boston area, Ben currently teaches at BSU, South Shore Conservatory, Community Music Center of Boston, Ipswich High School, Rockport High School, and as cellist-in-residence with the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society. He teaches from a method book of his own authorship, The Essential Technology of the Cello: A Textbook of the Efficient Cellist (2016).

Area of Expertise

Cello
Chamber Music
Viola da gamba
Erhu