Bio

Ben Denne is a graduate of Northwestern University where he studied Euphonium performance with Rex Martin and conducting with Mallory Thompson and John Paynter. He received a bachelor of music degree with an emphasis in both performance and education. He received his masters' degree in music education from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Mr. Denne has directed the orchestra program at Ellicott Mills MS since 1998.   In that time, the orchestra has grown from a small group of 4 violinists to a program that currently reaches ~170 students in four orchestras.  Mr. Denne is a frequent guest conductor around the state of Maryland, where he has conducted county middle-school and high-school honor groups.  He has also served on adjudication and assessment panels for Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Harford, and Montgomery Counties.  He has had a place on the music leadership team in Howard County for 8 years and has worked on many curriculum writing teams over the past 18 years.

A conductor of the Howard County Youth Orchestra (formerly the Howard County High School Gifted and Talented Orchestra) since 2002, Mr. Denne has taken students to perform at Carnegie Hall, the Midwest Clinic, and the Kennedy Center, where the orchestra performed a side-by-side concert with the top student orchestra from Beijing, China.

For 10 years, Mr. Denne also served as the director of the Howard High School orchestra, adding a second orchestra and doubling the number of students reached in the program.  The Howard High Orchestras and Mr. Denne were awarded recognition and won compeitions for performances in Boston, Chicago, Orlando, Virginia Beach, and Myrtle Beach.

Ben maintains a small studio of private students on euphonium, trombone, and tuba, performs with Butte and Friends on trombone, and was a former bass/baritone soloist at the Zion Lutheran church.  He resides in Columbia, MD with his wife Beth, daughter Katie, and bernedoodle Rio.