Ben Hall studied West African percussion with Jumma Santos as well as trap set and precognition with Milford Graves at Bennington College where he also worked with trumpet player and composer Bill Dixon on his last small group recordings. His playing makes room for barrages of furious, surging-and-receding energy along with drone-oriented bowing and rubbing, whether deafening or pin-drop quiet. Following an impressive run of albums made with collaborators such as Dixon, Borbetomagus saxophonist Don Dietrich, and guitarist Joe Morris, he released solo recitals as well as a duo with Mike Khoury in limited edition cassette edition, Blight in August. As an artist, Hall most recently presented a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and performed at the Moers Jazz Festival as a core member of Nate Wooley’s Seven Storey Mountain orchestra project. He also founded and organizes Bap-tizum.com, the largest Black/AfAm spiritual music archive in the world. He was a visiting faculty member at Bennington for Fall 2018 and returned as a research fellow for the 2019-2022 academic years. Ben is also a principal in the Catalytic Sound Collective based out of Chicago.