About & Photos

At the age of 14, Ben Finley plucked his first bass string. Everything changed! Immediately things fell still, without worry, in playful possibility. Miraculously, that feeling remains.

Ben Finley is a collaborative performer-composer, singer, and writer grounded in acoustic and electric bass playing. He grew up on a music festival farm (Westben). There, he witnessed many ways of making music, entwined with land and creatures. Dreams instilled: how might creative music-making and festival organizing counteract the global ecological crisis by connecting diverse expressions and experiences of places?

Ben is the co-founder and creative director of the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity’s Performer-Composer Residency and is Westben’s Sustainability Coordinator. He is a current Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Studies in Improvisation program at the University of Guelph, studying music festivals and creative music practices as sites of eco-cultural regeneration. He currently leads and co-leads several ensembles. www.benfinleymusic.com