Ben Saunders, Accompanist

Ben Saunders graduated from Seattle's Cornish College of the Arts in 2006 with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Classical piano performance. Building on an early regimen of Classical studies starting at age 5, Ben has been playing Jazz and Blues since he was 14. He has studied under Glory Fisher, Ike Jenkins, Larry Karush, Randy Halberstadt, Dawn Clement, Oksana Ezhokina, and Jovino Santos Neto.

His performance history includes the Mendelsohn g minor Piano Concerto with the Santa Barbara City College Orchestra (Fall 1999), keyboardist for the SBCC musical review 'World Goes Round' (Fall 2008), music director for "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" at Center Stage theater with Out Of The Box Theatre Co. (Feb 2013), pianist for "The Last Five Years" with Elements Theatre Collective (April, 2013), music director for Laguna Blanca high school's productions of "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (April 2014) and “Young Frankenstein” (April 2015), and music director for Dos Pueblos High School’s pilot production of Disney’s “Newsies” among other projects.

He is currently a member of the local Country band “The Detroit Sportsman’s Congress”, accompanist for Inner Light Gospel Choir, accompanist for the musical theatre class at Dos Pueblos High School, playing church services on Sundays at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church,and teaching private piano lessons.