Ben Carrasquillo

Bio

Ben Carrasquillo is a versatile trombonist who actively performs classical, jazz, and commercial music. He serves as Instructor of Trombone at Eastern Illinois University, in Charleston, IL, while also maintaining an active freelance career across the Midwest. He also maintains a private studio of middle and high school students in the Champaign-Urbana area.

Ben performs regularly with symphony orchestras in the Midwest, including Sinfonia da Camera, the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, the Danville Symphony Orchestra, the Heartland Festival Orchestra, and the Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra. As a jazz and commercial player, he has performed with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Temptations and the Four Tops, the Beach Boys, Jukebox Saturday Night, the Unexpected Boys, the national tour of Chicago: The Musical, Black Jacket Symphony, and more.

Ben has received numerous awards and honors on both the classical and jazz sides of the instrument, including winning the Eastern Trombone Workshop (now American Trombone Workshop) Division 1 Classical Solo Competition (2012). He also competed as a finalist in the International Trombone Festival’s Robert Marsteller Competition (2013), the ETW Division 2 Classical Solo Competition (2014), and the ATW Division 1 Jazz Solo Competition (2015), as well as being named a member of the Fellow Class at the 2013 Alessi Seminar. In the summer of 2015, Ben was a member of the Disneyland All-American College Band, a highly prestigious program that selects 21 outstanding college musicians from across the United States to perform for 11 weeks at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. During this time he worked under Dr. Ron McCurdy of the University of Southern California and performed with world-renowned musicians such as Alex Iles, Sal Lozano, Wayne Bergeron, Gregg Field, John Clayton, Jiggs Whigham, Steve Houghton, and Rex Richardson.

Ben received his bachelor’s degree in music performance and jazz studies from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL. His teachers were Jon Whitaker and Chris Kozak. He completed his master’s degree in jazz studies from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, under the tutelage of Jim Pugh. He is currently finishing his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois.