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Ben Schwendener

Pianist Ben Schwendener sustains a unique voice in contemporary creative music and natural pedagogy, and is a leading authority on George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization.

As a critically acclaimed pianist/composer, he has created music for dance companies, film, commercials and art installations. He has also written many volumes of children’s piano music, and toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan with his ensembles and on solo piano. His music can be heard on Label Bleu, Gravity Records and Alabaster.

Ben was an Editorial Assistant to the late George Russell. Schwendener is a certified teacher (and while George was alive, of teachers) of the Lydian Chromatic Concept. He is often invited to speak at national/international seminars.

A lifelong student of jazz, Ben has learned and played with jazz legends George Russell, Ran Blake, Jimmy Guiffre, Miroslav Vitous, Andrew Hill and Joe Maneri.

Schwendener lives and creates in Boston, and teaches at the New England Conservatory, the Longy School of Music and the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, MA. He has also taught classes in Creative and Critical Thinking through the Graduate College of Education at UMass Boston. Ben is founder and director of Gravity Arts, Inc., a nonprofit organization providing customized educational services and products for individuals, groups and corporations.

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Album Review

Ben Schwendener/Uwe Steinmetz: Apfelschaun

Read "Apfelschaun" reviewed by AAJ Staff


The latest pair of releases on Gravity Records, now in its fifteenth year, finds frequent collaborators Ben Schwendener (piano) and Uwe Steinmetz (saxophone) joined together in radically different contexts. Living Geometry II, as intensely focused on George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept as any modern recording, sees Steinmetz guesting for the final three tracks of a heavy two-disc double piano encounter between Schwendener and Marc Rossi. Apfelschaun, on the other hand, is a different beast entirely--easy-going, based on simple melodies and ...

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Event

NEC’s Jazz Studies Department Presents The Music of George Russell with the NEC Jazz Orchestra on October 16

NEC’s Jazz Studies Department Presents  The Music of George Russell with the NEC Jazz Orchestra on October 16

Source: Ann Braithwaite

Conducted by Ben Schwendener and Featuring Saxophonist George Garzone Thursday, October 16 at Brown Hall NEC faculty member Ben Schwendener will lead the NEC Jazz Orchestra in The Music of George Russell, a program featuring excerpts from several of Russell’s most ambitious works, as well as “All About Rosie,” traditionally included in all Russell programs. The concert takes place at 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 16 at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA. The concert is free and ...

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Recording

Gravity Records Releases Two By Ben Schwendener

Gravity Records Releases Two By Ben Schwendener

Source: All About Jazz

CONTACT: Scott Menhinick, Media Relations for Gravity Records Improvised Communications (781) 893-9424 [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 17, 2002

BOSTON, MA ? Gravity Records kicks off the celebration of its fifth anniversary with two new June releases from pianist, composer, and educator, Ben Schwendener. Road Trips(GRV 1900-5D) is the follow-up to Schwendener?s solo debut, Witness of the Sun(GRV 1900-3), and features the same jazz-rock quintet of saxophonist Bhob Rainey, guitarist ...

"No doubt about it, Schwendener is a supreme melody maker." �"Glenn Astarita, JazzReview.com

"The emotional content of the music is rich." �"Anthony Tommasini, Boston Globe

"Schwendener's music... veers oddly...in and out of my life as sort of an active soundtrack." �"Nils Jacobson, AllAboutJazz

"The themes are simple and unforgettable... paints a portrait of an artist who sees music as a form without boundaries, a medium of boundless possibilities, and infinite potential." �"John Kelman, AllAboutJazz

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