Dr. Benjamin Whitcomb, cellist

Benjamin Whitcomb, cellist and music theorist, has earned a national reputation as a highly skilled performer and teacher of music. An active recitalist and chamber musician, he performs more than twenty concerts a year. He appears regularly on the "Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen" concert series broadcast live on Wisconsin Public Radio. He collaborates with pianist Vincent de Vries in frequent recitals around the country, and he is a member of the Ancora String Quartet and the UW-Whitewater Piano Trio. He performs concertos with local orchestras, and he has also been a member of several orchestras in Texas and Wisconsin, including serving as Associate Principal Cello of the Madison Symphony and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He has produced several CDs of his recordings, including his 2007 release of solo cello works by Bach and Gabrieli on the MSR Classics label.

Dr. Whitcomb is a frequent guest clinician and performer at high schools and summer camps, including the National String Workshop, and universities throughout the country. His book, The Advancing Cellist’s Handbook, is now available for purchase through various on-line bookstores. He is a contributing author to the third volume of Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra. He has presented papers on cello and on music theory at several national conferences, including those of the American String Teachers' Association and the Society for Music Theory. He is also an articles reviewer and the editor of the Cello Forum of the American String Teacher journal. He is past president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American String Teachers’ Association. Dr. Whitcomb served as chair of the instrumental faculty at the La Musica Lirica music festival in Nova Feltria, Italy, from 2004 to 2007.

Dr. Whitcomb is Associate Professor of Cello and Music Theory at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater, where he initiated and continues to coordinate the Theory/History Colloquium speaker series, the Musical Mosaics Faculty Concert Series, and the UW-Whitewater String Chamber Music Camp. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Oklahoma State University, and he has studied with Phyllis Young, George Neikrug, and Evan Tonsing.