Ben Kutner is a composer, arranger, and Artistic Director based in New York. His work has appeared at performance venues across the United States and he currently serves as the Artistic Director of New Parnassus.

Ben’s music has been heard at venues including the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Morgan Library & Museum, the National Opera Center, Dixon Place, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, Son of Semele Theater, Brown University’s Granoff Center for the Arts, Jack Crystal Theater, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Jersey City Theater Centre, the Queens Museum, and San Francisco’s Brava Theater Center and NY Fashion Week.

His work “Duet for Audience and Ensemble” appeared at the LA Philharmonic’s 2022 Noon to Midnight Festival, and incorporated live-recorded music from the audience alongside the musicians of New Parnassus. In 2023, Ben created “Beethoven’s Next Quartet”, a project presented in partnership with New Parnassus and the Morgan Library & Museum which commissioned four new works based on Beethoven’s manuscript sketches, including composers Raven Chacon, Shara Nova and Laura Kaminsky.

Ben studied music at Brown University under Gerald Shapiro and counterpoint with Paul Caputo. He founded New Parnassus to push the envelope on the presentation of contemporary classical music. He received a Royce Fellowship to compose his first opera, The Days Between, and has also participated in Bard’s Discovery program at the Conductors Institute, as well as Rhymes With Opera’s Pocket Opera Workshop and the LA Philharmonic’s Hack Music LA hackathon.