Despite his youth, Ben Fryxell is already a seasoned veteran cellist and educator. Since his teenage years, he has been a regular presence on the concert stage and a frequent winner of awards and competitions. He has performed as a soloist with the Kentucky Symphony, Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony and the combined forces of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, and more. He was the recipient of the 2019 Samuel Mayes Memorial Cello Award from the Tanglewood Music Center.
Ben is especially interested in the potent social commentary and novel ideas of contemporary music. In April, 2022, he performed Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s “Canto di Speranza” with Matthias Pintscher and the New World Symphony. Recognizing his commitment to new music, the Tanglewood Music Center invited Ben to be one of their New Fromm Players during the summer of 2022, focusing on works composed in the past few decades.
Ben received his master of music degree from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Yeesun Kim, and his bachelor of music degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Natasha Brofsky. After graduate school, he joined the New World Symphony as a Fellow. He has also studied with AliceAnn O'Neill and Alan Rafferty, and has studied chamber music with members of the Juilliard and Borromeo String Quartets, as well as Emanuel Ax, Norman Fischer and countless others.
After his studies, he was appointed to the Jacksonville Symphony, where he is honored to serve as Associate Principal Cello. Besides being a cellist, Ben is a skilled pianist and arranger, as well as an occasional composer and conductor. Outside of music, he enjoys cooking, computer programming, studying languages, and United States numismatics.