Evan Bennett

Evan Bennett received extensive musical training as a conductor, composer, oboist, and pianist, winning national awards in composition and as a solo oboist. At nineteen he began playing professionally with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. As a conductor, he was formerly Music Director of the Middlebury College Orchestra and Lowell Opera. He has also conducted the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, Princeton University Orchestra, Middlebury Chamber Soloists, and other ensembles at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. He has conducted the premieres of over 15 new works, the most recent being Su Lian Tan’s Lotus Lives at the Manhattan School of Music with the Meridian Arts Ensemble.

His compositions have been premiered by the Brodsky String Quartet, Gemini, Cardinal Brass Quintet, Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, and a broadcast over BBC Radio. Other awards include the Yehudi Menuhin Prize and a Naumburg fellowship. In addition to his musical activities, he has been a guest lecturer and panelist on music education, including for the Korean government as part of its national KIGA program. A former faculty member at New England Conservatory and Middlebury College, he currently divides his time between New England Conservatory and the Walnut Hill School for the Arts where he serves as the Executive Director of the NEC at Walnut Hill program, as well as the Director of Music at the Walnut Hill. He holds degrees from Harvard, the Juilliard School, and Princeton University.