The Jazz Organ Scene

Great Britain

Benjamin Saunders Benjamin (* in Warrington) was educated at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh. He received his first organ lessons at the age of sixteen at St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral, Edinburgh and two years later won an Organ Scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied with Peter Hurford. Upon graduating, he held organist posts at the Cathedrals of St Giles' Edinburgh, Blackburn, and Chester and continued organ studies with David Sanger, Ann Bond and Michel Bouvard.   In 2002, Saunders was appointed Director of Music for the Diocese of Leeds, leading the department at Leeds Cathedral, the centre of England's largest choral programme, made up of 7,000 children meeting weekly. Benjamin has been engaged by many external bodies as a consultant in the management and development of music programmes with particular expertise in fundraising and organisational structure, especially addressing access in marginalised or deprived communities. He was appointed a Director of Leeds College of Music in 2013 and Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana in 2015. He has been a guest speaker at a variety of university conferences across the UK, Ireland and the United States and a judge for the BBC Young Chorister of the Year Competition. He has also received honorary awards from the Guild of Church Musicians and the Royal School of Church Music. From January 2021 he is leading the National Schools Singing Programme across the UK thanks to a multi-million pound grant from the Hamish Ogston Foundation.   Benjamin has performed to HM the Queen, Princess Anne and US President Carter and worked with conductor Carl Davis and jazz virtuoso Dick Hyman.

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