Ben Batchelder performed at Bryant Park in NYC on September 23, 2024 for the Accordions Around the World program. His performance was enthusiastically received.

Ben Batchelder
Ben Batchelder is a composer, playwright, and musician living in Brooklyn, NY. In 2023, he wrote, directed and performed in “GaySL”, a short play entirely in American Sign Language about a closeted gay man whose plans to come out of the closet to his deaf mother are foiled when his brother “comes out” as an accordion player. Over the summer, Batchelder led the Eastern European Folk Ensemble at Folk Camp Canada. Batchelder performed at Accordions Around the World Fest at Bryant Park alongside fiddle player Iryna Kit.
Batchelder is the current co-Musical Director of Ukrainian Village Voices, a NYC-based group specializing in performing polyphonic music from Ukraine’s villages, in which he sings and plays accordion and sopilka. During the day, he teaches private music lessons in and around Brooklyn and in the evenings he plays, sings and records with a number of bands throughout Brooklyn including The Newsreels, Open Blue, Ali Aslam and the Storytellers, and Cat Rickman and the Boys.

When asked about his thoughts about the accordion he replied, “I was handed my first accordion in 2011 when I was studying at Hampshire College, and I showed up to Adrienne Greenbaum’s klezmer ensemble at nearby Mt. Holyoke University with a flute, which was my first instrument. They had enough flute players, so Adrienne handed me her accordion and said, “You play piano, right? Learn this this.” This later became my first accordion.
Since then, accordion has become an important part of my life as a versatile accompaniment instrument to Eastern European folk music, and in my job performing with Ukrainian Village Voices, I use the accordion often. There’s nothing like playing the accordion. It’s like having a whole orchestra at your fingertips.”

For further information: b3nbatch@gmail.com