Ben Smith

Originally from Monroe, Georgia, Benjamin (Ben) Smith is an orchestral flutist, chamber musician, and writer. As a soloist and chamber musician, Ben has performed on major stages across France, Italy, Germany, Canada, and South Korea. He is a regular substitute musician with multiple orchestras and is a founding member of the award-winning wind quintet, ZaRiah. Ben has performed on concert series presented by the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle, Bang on a Can, and Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City. His past summer festival engagements include the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, National Orchestral Institute, Festival International de Musique Classique à Puget, and Orford Musique.

An advocate of new music, Ben arranged Hisatada Otaka’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, op. 30b for flute choir and performed the work as a soloist with the Oberlin Conservatory flute studio in 2022. That same year, Ben gave the Canadian debut of works by Sang-jin Kim at Orford Musique as part of the Rising Stars Concert Series. In 2024, he performed at the Bang on a Can Long Play Festival and played at the Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, New York as a member of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Ben returned to the Roulette Intermedium in 2025 to perform on the Yale School of Music’s New Music New Haven concert series in New York.

As a writer, Ben was the featured guest author in the April 2023 edition of The Flute Examiner Magazine, where he wrote about his time studying abroad in Korea. He served as a blogger on behalf of Oberlin College’s Office of Admissions during his four years as a student, and continues to write about music and performance on his personal website.

Ben earned his Master’s degree at the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Tara Helen O’Connor and received his Bachelor’s degree studying with Alexa Still at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. During his time at Oberlin, Ben studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea where he studied with Minji Kim and Seonah Jang. Ben previously studied with Kelly Via at the Atlanta Music Academy.

Outside of his time in the classical sphere, Ben creates video game OST arrangements under the alias ‘fluteyloops.’ Ben has amassed over 170,000 listeners on Spotify and enjoys finding and listening to new soundtracks.