Dr. Benjamin Sorrell is a saxophonist and educator whose teaching career spans over 20 years and every level of the instrument — from students picking it up for the first time to graduate students at the university level. He is Saxophone and Chamber Music Lecturer at California State University, Northridge, and is on the faculty at Riverside City College. His private saxophone and clarinet studio spans Los Angeles County. Most of his students don’t become music majors — and that was never the point. What they develop is a genuine love of music and an understanding of what real discipline and focused work actually feel like. His students have gone on to various institutions including New England Conservatory, McGill University, Vanderbilt University, UCLA, Rutgers University, and multiple California State University campuses.
Benjamin holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, both with Honors, from New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Kenneth Radnofsky. He won the New England Conservatory Concerto Competition in 2008 and is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, the National Music Honor Society. An early indication of his musical range and ability, Benjamin received the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award in high school and performed concerti with both his High School Wind Ensemble and the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey Wind Ensemble. He is a Conn-Selmer Artist and performs exclusively on Selmer Paris saxophones.
As a performer, Benjamin has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral collaborator throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, with a particular commitment to contemporary music. He has performed with the San Diego Symphony, the Modesto Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Winds, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and the Monday Evening Concerts Series in Los Angeles — including the LA Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight program at Walt Disney Concert Hall — and has appeared at John Zorn’s The Stone in New York City, Helmut List Halle in Graz, Austria, and the Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival in South Korea. He has worked under conductors including Carl St. Clair, Hugh Wolff, Gunther Schuller, Donald Palma, Beat Furrer, and Benjamin Zander. He has given over 20 world premieres, including commissioned works by Joan Tower, Mohammed Fairouz, and Shih-Hui Chen, and has been heard on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
He has participated in festivals including the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Brevard Music Center, European University for Saxophone, the Habanera Saxophone International Academy, International Music Institute Darmstadt, the Impuls Ensemble Academy for Contemporary Music, and the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.