Benjamin Loeb, a native Texan, is an accomplished conductor, accompanist, soloist, arranger, and educator. His recent performance with the Greater Bridgeport (CT) Symphony Orchestra as a “double-threat” both playing and conducting Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was called “a total triumph that triggered a well-deserved, spontaneous standing ovation. Loeb and the GBS captured every ounce of imagination and emotion Gershwin packed into his ground-breaking musical portrait. [Connecticut Post]” Other widely varied projects range from concerts of Beethoven and Bruckner Symphonies to recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of Italian 16th century madrigalists to tours with popular rock musicians to world premieres of the most cutting-edge avant-garde contemporary music. As the Associate Conductor of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, Loeb founded and serves as Music and Executive Director of the El Paso Symphony Youth Orchestras – El Paso’s only national-level, multiple-orchestra system serving the best young musicians in the El Paso, southern New Mexico and Juarez region. He has held the position of Assistant Conductor for the Haddonfield Symphony for four years and Assistant Conductor for the Greater Bridgeport (CT) Symphony Orchestra for two, and has served for three summers as Assistant Conductor for the TodiMusicFest in Portsmouth, VA. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the International Conducting Workshop and Festival, now in its sixth year, last summer being held in Zlin, Czech Republic and Chihuahua, Mexico. He has also held the position of Director of Orchestras at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Benjamin Loeb’s projects have shown his tremendous range. With the Haddonfield Symphony he led musical outreach into schools in southern New Jersey in which he introduced children of all ages to the instruments of the orchestra. At Rutgers University, the Peabody Conservatory and Harvard University, he led operas in full productions. This was the fifth summer he held the International Conducting Workshop and Festival – two eleven-day workshops for conductors in Zlin, Czech Republic and Chihuahua, Mexico, which have trained over 250 conductors from 27 countries over the last five years, and which have included both chamber music with international artists and concerts with the host orchestras. The ICWF has included past faculty members such as Gustav Meier, Carl St.Clair, Rossen Milanov, and Jacob Chi. Next summer’s workshop will be led by Larry Rachleff, Director of Conducting Studies at Rice University and Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and San Antonio Symphony. At the Peabody Conservatory, as a musical response to the attacks of September 11, Loeb organized and led what Tim Smith of The Baltimore Sun called “a remarkable concert” of Bruckner Symphony #7 and the world premiere of John Traill’s “In Memory”, a set of four orchestral miniatures based on the themes of the Bruckner. He has been asked by Yo-Yo Ma to create and conduct arrangements of 16th century madrigals for his Silk Road Project, and he has toured with his sister Lisa Loeb leading orchestral accompaniments to her rock music.

As a pianist, Benjamin Loeb has been praised by the Boston Globe: “[his] vigorous, cogent playing signaled the kind of equally weighted partnership, plus competition, plus mutual quest, etc. that [makes] this music live.” This season highlights include three performances of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto including one in which he both conducted and performed as soloist. His concerts have taken him around to world to major venues in New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Seoul, Guangzhou, Panama City, and tours across the United States. He has toured for Community Concerts and has been featured as Artist-in-Residence on NPR’s Performance Today with violinist Livia Sohn. He also toured Argentina and Chile as one of the last Artistic Ambassadors for the United States Information Agency with clarinetist David Gresham. He has served as an official pianist for the Joseph Joachim/Hanover International Violin Competition, the Walter Naumberg Violin Competition, Marlboro Music Festival and Concerts Artist Guild auditions, and the Steans/Ravinia Festival among others. He can be heard on many labels having recorded CD’s with violinist Joseph Lin (Korngold) and Takako Nishizaki (Mozart) on Naxos, Judy Kang for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, with soprano Allison Charney on the DSCLabel. He also has an upcoming solo album on Naxos of Joplin Rags as well as more CD’s with Joseph Lin (Busoni Violin Sonatas) and Livia Sohn (opera fantasies and transcriptions).

He holds a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory in Conducting, as a student of Gustav Meier, a Master in Music from the Curtis Institute and a Doctor in Musical Arts from the Juilliard School in Accompanying and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University.

This year has seen him relocate to El Paso, Texas with his wife, Quyen, and his year-old daughter, Anna Sofia Uni. He continues to tour worldwide as conductor and pianist, teaches at the new El Paso Conservatory of Music, and conducts the El Paso Symphony Youth Orchestras.

Loeb’s far-ranging interests do not limit him to music. He has directed plays, cooked gourmet meals for 65, and played and enjoyed almost every sport. He has tutored over 500 people in test preparation for the Princeton Review. Moreover, he is a lifetime Dallas Cowboys fan.