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Ben Stevenson

Kansas City based composer/librettist Ben Stevenson's music has been heard across the United States. In March 2022 New Opera West premiered his short comic opera Toxic X, after previously premiering his opera Recovered. His opera Domestic was featured at the Fort Worth Opera's 2018 Frontiers Festival. He was also a finalist for the 2020 Zepick Modern Opera Prize from Opera Kansas. His music has also been performed at festivals such as the Charlotte New Music FestivalElectronic Music Midwest Festival, and the June in Buffalo and SPLICE festivals.  He has been commissioned by FuseBox New Music, Charlotte New Music Festival, SPLICE, the Missouri Music Teachers Association, trumpeter Alex Caselman, oboist Wendy Grew, saxophonist Nicolas Lira, percussionist Darin Wadley, and clarinetist/conductor Luis Viquez. His orchestral work Tracer was read by the Kansas City Symphony in 2016 and he has also worked with KCVitas, Alter Ego Chamber Opera, the PRISM sax quartet, Donald Sinta QuartetBeo String Quartet, newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Collapss, Ensemble Dal Niente and the UMKC Wind Symphony.

He earned his DMA and MM in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City studying with Chen Yi, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Paul Rudy, and Reynold Simpson. While at UMKC he served as assistant director of the Musica Nova Ensemble. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Music Theory and Composition from the University of Tennessee. He has had lessons or attended masterclasses with Aaron Jay Kernis, Samuel Adler, David Felder, David Dzubay, Jeffrey Mumford, Lawrence Dillon, John Allemeier, Henrik Hellstenius, Eivind Buene, Joshua Levine, Paula Matthusen and Elainie Lillios. He studied play-writing with Frank Higgins.