Benjamin Webster

2020 William Thomas McKinley Memorial
​Alba Alumni Commission

We are thrilled to announce Benjamin Webster, a 2017 Alba Composition Program Alum, is the recipient of the 2020 Alba Alumni Commission. This commission, named in honor of the late American composer, William Thomas McKinley, and supported by gift from the William Thomas McKinley Foundation, is awarded annually to one of the alumni of the Alba Music Festival Composition Program. Mr. Webster will compose a new work for the 2020 resident group, the Borromeo String Quartet, during the 2020 Alba Music Festival.

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About The Commissioned Composer

Winner of a 2019 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Benjamin Webster is a composer and clarinetist from the Boston area currently pursuing a masters degree in composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music studying with Andrew Norman and Nina C. Young. His music has been performed by a variety of ensembles including the Jacob’s School Chamber Orchestra, Frost Symphony Orchestra, Frost Symphonic Winds, Transient Canvas, and the Passepartout Duo; has been heard at the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk New Music Workshop, Alba Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, 2018 National SCI Student Conference, 2018 NACWPI National Conference, and the Ciclo de Música Contemporánea de Oviedo; and has been included in reading sessions involving the Frost Wind Ensemble, and members of the Cleveland Orchestra. Benjamin graduated with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Miami and his prior teachers include Charles Mason, Lansing McLoskey, Howard Frazin, and Margaret Donaghue.

Ben (far right) with some of the other 2017 Alba fellows during a concert with Transient Canvas.