In the early nineties, Ben became fascinated with traditional European and Celtic music, playing bodhrán with Irish folk bands, getting involved in Balkan music and building and playing his own vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy). In 1997 he received a Canada Council grant to study ud and Turkish classical music in Turkey, and in 2001 to study vielle à roue with Simon Wascher (Vienna) and Valentin Clastrier (central France).

Over the last fifteen years Ben has performed and recorded with an assortment of traditional, folk, experimental, early music, jazz, pop and fusion groups including the Toronto Consort, Ensemble Polaris, violinist Oliver Schroer and early music ensemble La Nef. For the last few years, he has toured the US with electronic music innovator BT and extensively in North America and Europe with Loreena McKennitt.

Ben’s work has appeared on over eighty CDs and can also be heard on film soundtracks, radio dramas, and in television shows and commercials.

Today, his main focus is the vielle à roue and it’s applications in early, traditional, experimental and ambient music, and the exploration of all of the sound possibilities of this ’acoustic synthesizer’.