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Ben Wendel GROUP
Jazz Coterie live music concert series presents 2X Grammy Nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel with Gabriel Chakarji on piano, Or Bareket on bass, and Ofri Nehemya on drums in our pop-up jazz club at Stevens Point Country Club.
Grammy nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Los Angeles, CA. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, composer and producer. Highlights include tours, performances and/or recordings with artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Bill Frisell, Terence Blanchard, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Snoop Dogg and the artist formerly known as Prince. Ben is a founding member of the Grammy nominated group Kneebody.
“The music of saxophonist, bassoonist and composer Ben Wendel is exuberant.”
As a composer, he has received an ASCAP Jazz Composer Award, the 2008, 2011 and 2017 Chamber Music America “New Works Grant” and was awarded the Victor Lynch-Staunton award by the Canada Council for the Arts. He has also co-written multiple scores for film, television and animated shorts.
“A naturally inquisitive musician whose credentials branch out beyond jazz.”
Ben has recorded for Edition Records, Sunnyside Records, Motéma Music, Concord Records and Brainfeeder, including six solo albums, Simple Song (2009), Frame (2012), What We Bring (2016) The Seasons (2018), High Heart (2020), All One (2023) and multiple Kneebody albums.
“Ben Wendel redefines the musical encounter.”
In 2015, Ben released a music-video art project entitled The Seasons inspired by a set of twelve piano pieces written and release each month by Tchaikovsky in 1876. Wendel’s modern take on the idea was to compose and release twelve original jazz chamber duets in video format on YouTube with modern luminaries Joshua Redman, Luciana Souza, Eric Harland, Julian Lage, and Ambrose Akinmusire, among others. As the videos garnered acclaim among social networks, the project became an unexpected word of mouth success and was featured prominently in The New York Times (Best of 2015), NPR’s All Things Considered, and the CBC.
“Wendel’s arranging and composing capabilities, offers music that is fruitful, explorative and thoroughly satisfying.”
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Ben is a former teacher of Jazz Studies at USC and the New School in NYC. Educational outreach has been a constant in his career with over 300 masterclasses at various colleges and universities around the world. His online masterclass series and other educational products have been sold in over sixty countries.
“It’s obvious he sees a mission to stretch boundaries.”