Beau Benson
Biography
Beau Benson serves as Orchestra Conductor and Director of Instrumental Music at Pepperdine University. He is also in his third season as Artist Director for the Temple Symphony Orchestra and his twelfth as Music Director/Conductor for the Oregon East Symphony and Chorale.
Prior to his time at Pepperdine, Dr. Benson led a nationally recognized public school orchestra program in Texas and served as Music Director for the Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra. Additional posts he has held include: Principal Conductor for the Metroplex Opera in Dallas, Texas; Music Director/Conductor for the Mason Orchestral Society in Mason, Michigan; and Music Director for the Texas A&M University Symphony.
His recent guest conducting includes engagements with the Waco Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Garvin County Sinfonietta, All Cape Festival Orchestra (Cape Cod, MA), Texas Ballet Frontier, Williamson County Symphony, Avant Chamber Ballet, Pendleton Ballet Theatre, the Central Texas Choral Society, and the Austin Civic Orchestra.
Dr. Benson has been the recipient of the Marjorie Keller Young String Teacher of the Year Award given by the Texas Chapter of the American String Teacher Association and has twice received third place in the competition for the American Prize in Orchestral Conducting. In addition, he has been a semifinalist for the Vytautus Marijosius Prize in Opera Conducting. As a guitarist, Dr. Benson has been a finalist in the United Kingdom’s Stafford International Guitar Recital Competition and has been the recipient of a grant from the D’Adarrio Foundation to support a performance tour in Italy.
As a soloist, Dr. Benson has appeared with orchestras such as the North East Texas Symphony, Orchestra of New Spain, Mesquite Symphony, Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Houston Civic Symphony. He has also performed as a guest artist for the Dallas Basically Beethoven Festival, University of Houston, Rice University, Kansas City Guitar Society, Dallas Guitar Society, American Musicological Society’s annual conference, Spanish Consulate, Guitar Houston, Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, and at a special reception for the King and Queen of Spain.
Dr. Benson’s compositions have been performed by the Flower Mound Chamber Orchestra, Houston Civic Symphony, Meadows Wind Ensemble, New Texas Symphony, Mason Symphony, Lewis and Clark College Symphony Orchestra, Academy Musique of Temple, Oregon East Symphony, and the Jugend Guitarren Orchester of Hessen, Germany, which premiered his overture Celaeno on its 2005 tour of Poland, subsequently releasing it on their 2007 recording Klangwelten in Holz und Nylon. His accompaniment to the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu has also been performed widely by orchestras across the United States.
Dr. Benson’s scholarly research has focused on American orchestral music prior to 1900. In addition to championing this repertoire in his programming, he has prepared a critical edition of the third symphony by the 19th century New York composer George Frederick Bristow. A grant from Michigan State University allowed him to examine the autograph manuscript as well as the two extant sets of parts (one from the 1859 premiere, and one commissioned by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930’s) in compiling the new edition.
Beau Benson received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting at Michigan State University. He received his Masters degree in Orchestral Conducting from Southern Methodist University, where he also earned bachelors degrees in classical guitar performance and music education.