Benjamin Altman “possesses robust technique and enough agility to make [the music] both sound and appear effortless,” and “a musical intelligence and intuitiveness” that have impressed audiences across the country. He is an active concertizer, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. Recent performances include solo and chamber music appearances at Dumbarton House, Strathmore Mansion, the Lyceum, and other venues in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Past appearances include concerts with the Colorado Guitar Quartet, the trio Magpie, the “Fresh City Life” series at the Denver Public Library, the Ocmulgee Symphony Orchestra, and Joaquin Rodrigo’s famous Concierto de Aranjuez with the Macon Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his activities as a performer, Mr. Altman has been a dedicated teacher for more than ten years. He currently teaches at the Opal Music Studio, the Potomac School, and the International School of Music in the Washington DC metro area. Previously Mr. Altman has served on faculty at Nazareth College, the Eastman Community Music School, and the Rocky Ridge Music Center. During his graduate studies, he not only taught private lessons and chamber music, but gave a course on Guitar Pedagogy.

Mr. Altman constantly engages in outreach and the musical life of his community, most recently by volunteering at the University of Colorado Hospital. In the past, he arranged community and educational performances for underserved audiences with Music For All in Rochester, New York, The Creative Access in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Community Service Project in San Francisco. He was the guitarist in the Denver band Story & Clark, has played with the Denver Mandolin Orchestra, and in a Balkan folk ensemble in Rochester. In addition to guitar, Benjamin has performed music by Henze, Webern, Zappa, Babbitt, Donatoni, and Bach in orchestral and chamber settings on the mandolin.

Mr. Altman earned the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music, where he was an assistant to Prof. Nicholas Goluses. He studied previously at the Peabody Institute and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where his teachers were Julian Gray and David Tanenbaum. Throughout his career he has expanded the horizons of the classical guitar by performing new music, including premiers of works by Jorge Liderman, Terry Riley, and David Plylar, and through transcriptions of music ranging from Bach and Rossini to Radiohead and Regina Spektor.