Benjamin Hunter

Benjamin Hunter is an award winning multi-instrumentalist—violin, mandolin, guitar, percussion, voice—whose interests lie in roots music from around the world.  Born in Lesotho, raised predominantly in Phoenix, with stints in Seattle and Zimbabwe, Ben was raised classically on violin, but now plays a variety of styles—roots, folk, jazz, blues, gospel, world.  Ben plays in the internationally touring duo, Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons, as well as solo and with other local Seattle jazz groups.  In 2017, Ben composed music for a dance piece, Black Bois, that has received critical acclaim, and is currently an artist-in-residence for Seattle's On The Boards theater group.  

Ben also does community development work, and in 2011, he founded Community Arts Create, a small, arts and community development organization that uses creativity as a stimulus for inter-generational, inter-cultural social engagement.  In 2013, he co-founded The Hillman City Collaboratory, an incubator for social change in south Seattle. In 2016, Ben co-founded Black & Tan Hall as a next step in fashioning new models for community empowerment and equity. Ben was the recipient of the 2015 Governor’s Arts & Heritage Award, 2016 City Arts Magazine Future’s List Award, 2016 International Blues Challenge winner, and the 2019 Gordon Ekvall Tracie Memorial Award.  Ben is a Seattle Music Commissioner, and served on Seattle’s pilot BASE program board (Building Art Space Equitably)."

For more info, visit  https://www.benjaminhuntermusic.com/