Ben Smith – Flutist • Artistic Director • Writer

Originally from Monroe, Georgia, Ben Smith is a chamber musician, artistic director, and writer. As a soloist and chamber musician, Ben has performed on major stages across France, Italy, Germany, Canada, and South Korea. He is a founding member of the award-winning wind quintet, ZaRiah: the 2026 Grand Prize Winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. With ZaRiah, Ben has been toured both nationally and internationally, performed on national radio broadcasts, and given back to the classical music community through extensive community outreach engagements. Ben has performed on concert series presented by the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle, Bang on a Can, and Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City. His past festival engagements include the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, National Orchestral Institute, Festival International de Musique Classique à Puget, and Orford Musique. An advocate of new music, Ben has performed at the Bang on a Can Long Play Festival at the Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn–first as a member of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and again as part of the Yale School of Music’s New Music New Haven concert series. This summer, he will be in residence as a fellow at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. 

Ben is a Founder and Artistic Director of Queen City Chamber Music: a new concert series in Charlotte, created to bring virtuosic chamber music ensembles from around the world into an intimate, engaging, and community-centered setting. An advocate of making music accessible to all audiences, Ben believes in the connective power of chamber music and presenting fresh perspectives–whether to timeless classics or to new repertoire.

As a writer, Ben was the featured guest author in the April 2023 edition of The Flute Examiner Magazine, where he wrote about his time studying abroad in Korea. He served as a blogger on behalf of Oberlin College’s Office of Admissions during his four years as a student, and continues to write about music and performance on his personal website. 

Ben earned his Master’s degree at the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Tara Helen O’Connor and received his Bachelor’s degree studying with Alexa Still at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. During his time at Oberlin, Ben studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea where he studied with Minji Kim and Seonah Jang. Ben previously studied with Kelly Via at the Atlanta Music Academy. 

Beyond the concert hall, Ben creates video game OST arrangements under the alias ‘fluteyloops.’ He has amassed over 180,000 listeners on Spotify, and enjoys finding and listening to new soundtracks.