About Our Director
Evan Bennett received extensive musical training as a
conductor, composer, oboist, and pianist, winning national
awards in composition and as a solo oboist. At nineteen he
began playing professionally with the Utah Symphony
Orchestra. As a conductor, he was formerly Music Director
of the Middlebury College Orchestra and Lowell Opera. He
has also conducted the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Da Capo
Chamber Players, Princeton University Orchestra,
Middlebury Chamber Soloists, and other ensembles at
venues such as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at
Lincoln Center. He has conducted the premieres of over 15
new works, the most recent being Su Lian Tan’s Lotus Lives
at the Manhattan School of Music with the Meridian Arts
Ensemble. His compositions have been premiered by the
Brodsky String Quartet, Gemini, Cardinal Brass Quintet,
Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, and a broadcast
over BBC Radio. Other awards include the Yehudi
Menuhin Prize and a Naumburg fellowship. In addition
to his musical activities, he has been a guest lecturer and
panelist on music education, including for the Korean
government as part of its national KIGA program. A
former faculty member at New England Conservatory and
Middlebury College, he currently divides his time between
New England Conservatory and the Walnut Hill School for
the Arts where he serves as the Executive Director of the
NEC at Walnut Hill program, as well as the Director of Music
at the Walnut Hill. He holds degrees from Harvard, the
Juilliard School, and Princeton University.
E-mail: e.bennett@neu.edu