Ben Jacks

Ben Jacks is one of Australia’s leading Horn Players. He was born in Hobart in 1975 and studied at the University of Western Australia under Heidi Kepper. Further studies have been completed with Dale Clevenger and Gail Williams in Chicago, Stefan Dohr in Berlin, Professor Erich Penzel in Cologne and Hector McDonald in Vienna.

Ben was appointed as Principal Horn of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2001 after already holding the position of Principal Third Horn from 1998. Ben has performed with every professional orchestra in Australia, playing as Guest Principal with the Tasmanian, Adelaide, Queensland, Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra (Sydney). Ben also enjoys a career performing internationally as guest Principal Horn with the Malaysian Philharmonic and Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan.

Ben Jacks has a busy solo career performing in recitals, brass quintets and in 2003 as soloist with the Sydney Symphony, West Australian Symphony Orchestra and with the Academy of Melbourne. In recent performances, Ben has engaged in a strenuous seven concert series of Schumann’s Concertstuck over two weeks and has continued his presence as a regular solo voice in both recital and orchestral settings. Jacks has recently broken into the career of a recording artist with his debut CD “Rhapsodie” for the Melba label. Featuring Barry Tuckwell as conductor and Ben as solo artist, the album has received a high standard of reviews, and is well respected for its presentation of previously unrecorded materials.

Ben is in high demand as a teacher and currently works as Horn Lecturer to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has been invited as a guest tutor for the Australian Youth Orchestra program.

Ben lives in Sydney’s inner west with his wife Lisa and their two beautiful children Xavier and Olive. Besides a busy vocation as a sought after musician, Ben is a lover of fine food, and on occasion good red wine. He is an avid sports fan and follows the Eagles hoping that the glory of the early nineties will one day be revisited!