Ben Jossi is an up and coming composer, performer, and educator based on Chicago’s North Side. Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Ben moved to the city in 2019 to pursue a Bachelors of Music in Composition and Production at Columbia
College Chicago where he recently graduated this past spring. As a composer, Ben is active in media projects nationally and his work has been used in Gut Dreams, a five play mashup of new student writers at Columbia, a summer long interview series called Stuck in Your Stereo on WCRX, and recently a short film debut with Red Rectangle. This spring, he worked with the graduate students in Columbia’s theater department on incidental music for a live reading of poetry called
Neutral Grounds. As well as a movement performance accompanied by a concerto for
flute and chamber ensemble entitled rinding Gleam As a performer, Ben has a strong background as a jazz saxophonist holding soloist recognitions from Elmhurst University, University of Notre Dame, and University of Wisconsin: Eau Claire and being a recipient of the Louis Armstrong Award. He has been featured alongside Vulfpeck member Woody Goss, Hippocampus’ Decarlo Jackson, and Tia Fuller of Beyonce. He also has played keys as a musical theater accompanist and has been an on-call piano sub for recording engineer Nick Eipers’
course on jazz production at Columbia. He now runs his own band called Retrospect. This is a group where jazz improvisation dances with Latin rhythms, hip hop grooves, with a dash of Americana. They have been featured as a headliner at Manifest Urban
Arts Fest, WCRX’s Sessions@33, and the Epiphany Center for the Arts. As an educator, Ben is both a learner and a teacher. As a student, he has worked with GRAMMY nominated Ilya Levison, Emmy winning Brandon Campbell, Sharel Cassity, saxophonist for the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Groups and Dan White, currently on tour with Kurt Elling. As an educator, Ben has worked with all ages from four years old to late teens mainly at day camps teaching social skills and the arts. This past summer he worked as a unit head for apachi camps with JCC Chicago and worked for six years in
the ‘Twin Cities with the Minnesota JCC. Ben is based on the north side, he works in Lincoln Park, Lakeview, North
Center, Roscoe Village, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Edgewater and Rogers Park.
