Ben Zucker works with music as a hybrid practice of sound, composition, improvisation, multimedia, and theory, with an eye towards worldmaking practices for ethical, sensuous, and speculative spaces. He has contributed to experimental music scenes of the Bay Area, Connecticut, London, Chicago, and beyond, performing and presenting work in places including the BanffCentre (Alberta, CA), Vortex Jazz Club (London), San Francisco Center For New Music, Trinity College Dublin, Southbank Centre (London), Indeterminacy Festival (Buffalo/Montreal), Westben Centre (Ontario), Switchboard Music Festival (SF), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), and the Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany). He has been called a “master of improvisation” (IMPOSE Magazine), was recognized as a "New Composer Talent" by the International Audio Branding Academy, and his work has won awards and commissions from the Chicago Composers Orchestra, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Nucleo Musica Nova (Parana, Brazil), Constellation Men’s Ensemble (Chicago), Khorikos (NYC), San Francisco Choral Artists, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. His interdisciplinary collaborations include The Last Days Of The Old Wild Boy with Rinde Eckert; music direction and sound design for the New York Fringe Festival; documentaries screened at the Environmental Film Festival (Washington DC), DOCNYC, and Sight & Sound Magazine; and interactive audiovisual performances Baltic Art Form and London Roundhouse with the international Analema Group.
As a performer, Ben frequently combines brass, percussion, voice, keyboards, and electronics in a variety of settings. He has been a founding member of groups performing free improvisation, salsa, experimental vocal music, noise, post-rock, and contemporary classical music, including: Don Froot, the Apres-Garde Ensemble, Arcadio, the Improviser's Choir, Jabberwock, Metafauna, World Beside Us, and Three Hands Clapping. He has performed with musicians such Anthony Braxton, Matana Roberts, Myra Melford, Karen Borca, The Crossing, The Vocal Constructivists, Vinny Golia, the San Francisco Choral Artists, Amy Brandon, Adam Shead, Tommy Carroll, and Ramon & Jessica. His album projects, released on Amalgam Records, Dinzu Artifacts, Not Art Records, Verz Imprint, Weekend EP Project, and I Low You Records, have been acclaimed as “a testament to the power of restraint and arrangement” (Decoder Magazine) and "more than a little bit remarkable" (Free Jazz Blog). His most recent album, Fifth Season (Amalgam Records), explores long-form prose scores for improvisers with a quartet at the intersection of chamber music and free jazz.
Ben studied music, performance, and philosophy at Wesleyan University, Brunel University London, and currently as a doctoral student at Northwestern University outside Chicago.