Ben Kapilow

Ben Kapilow works as Assistant Professor/Music Director for the BFA/BA Programs in Musical Theatre at SUNY Cortland. Prior to his appointment at SUNY Cortland, he served as the Resident Music Director for the Media Theatre for the Performing Arts, a position he held for 7 years. In that position, he music directed 23 professional shows for their Broadway Series, 14 Teen Shows, and 16 Children's Shows. He has worked as an audition accompanist for the Walnut Street Theatre and has music directed the Walnut Street Theatre Gala annually since 2022. He has also worked as a pianist and music director at Candlelight Theatre, Fulton Theatre, Temple University, Malvern Preparatory School, Mother of Providence School, and St. Pius X School.

Active in education, Ben has taught private piano, songwriting, and voice lessons to many hundreds of students through the Media Theatre, Darlington Arts Center, and Meridee Winters School of Music, regularly teaching 50 students per week. He also served as the music director for the State Street Miracles, the Media Theatre’s vocal group for adults with intellectual disabilities.

His interest in music teaching led him to create the piano teacher podcast All Keyed Up in 2021, which at its height had 17,000 subscribers and was named one of the Top Piano Podcasts of 2021 by Welp Magazine and one of the 20 Best Piano Podcasts by Feedspot. He has been featured on the TopCast Podcast, Josh Wright Piano Podcast, Piano Pantry Podcast, the Piano Parent Podcast, and Pianist Academy. He was a presenter at the Pennsylvania Music Teacher’s Association Conference in June 2024, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in June 2023, the Creative Teaching Conference in Cincinatti in July 2022, the Expand Online Summit in May 2022, and the Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association Conference in March 2016. He has published articles about piano pedagogy with Colourful Keys and Piano Magazine.

As a composer, Ben has choral pieces published by Alfred Music, Chorister’s Guild, and the Lorenz Corporation. His piece “The Bells” received Editor’s Choice from JW Pepper in 2024. The Media Theatre has premiered seven of his children's musicals. His musical "Peter Pan and Wendy,” written with Kate Herzlin, was additionally performed at the American Contemporary Theater of Connecticut in Summer 2018. His concert pieces have been performed by Symphony Number One, the Great Noise Ensemble, Trio Ex Animo, the University of Scranton Singers, the Swarthmore College Orchestra, and at the Jack O'Lantern Blaze Festival in Hudson Valley, New York for two consecutive seasons. He also composed incidental music for “Hecuba” at the American Thymele Theatre and "Inducement and Encouragement" at the Zephyr Theatre. Relatedly, he was the music director for the MusiCoLab New Works showcase in June 2024.

Ben graduated Pi Kappa Lambda from the Peabody Conservatory with an M.M. in Music Composition, and he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in Music and Psychology. He returned to Swarthmore College in 2023 as an Honors Examiner in Music.