“A musician of wit and sensibility.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Rick Benjamin has been a member of the Goldman Band, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Gramercy Brass, the ABC Network television orchestra, The Little Orchestra Society, and the Commonwealth Brass Quintet. As a New York freelance tubist, he has played and recorded in a wide range of styles, from traditional jazz to film soundtracks to contemporary classical music. In the orchestral field, he performed under the direction of several noted conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Sir Andrew Litton, Gunther Schuller, Sergiu Comissiona, Robert Craft and Morton Gould.

Also a conductor, Mr. Benjamin has led the National Orchestra of Ireland (Dublin), the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Olympia Symphony (Washington State), and the Århus and Aalborg Symfoniorkesters (both in Denmark) and the Virginia Symphony. Since 1985, he has served as music director and pianist of the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, an historic American music repertory ensemble which tours year-round throughout the United States and abroad.

Mr. Benjamin has been Bucknell University’s lecturer in tuba since 1993. As a teacher of euphonium, his ownership and use of the personal manuscripts, pedagogical works and papers of euphonium legend Simone Mantia (principal soloist of the Sousa Band) are unique in the field.

Mr. Benjamin attended The Juilliard School; his teachers include Don Butterfield and Don Harry (tuba), Sarah Nehman (piano) and Eric Ewazen (music theory). Mr. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and BMI.

Recordings: New World Records, Vanguard, Dorian, MCA Classics.

• FILM-260: Early Film Music
• MUSC-001: Brass Lesson
• MUSC-002: Brass Lesson
• MUSC-260: Early Film Music