Ben Yats

Ben is a musician focused on the lifelong pursuit of creating joy through the medium of drums and percussion. While he has studied classical and contemporary music in the university setting, his curiosity led him to studying multitudes of different musical traditions: Tabla, Frame Drums, and Bodhran, to name a few.

Thanks to his diverse studies, he is at home in a multitude of musical environments. You may see him in the percussion section of an orchestra, coaching a high school drum line, in a modern chamber group, improvising at a music festival, playing amplified cactus, behind a drum set in a musical or church service, or in folk music settings. These different avenues have led him to meet incredibly diverse and unique individuals, who have helped to shape his musical identity.

Ben's desire to connect with people through music has been the driving force in his pedagogical belief that "Music Makes Life More Beautiful," a quote he heard from Dr. Spencer after an extremely competitive game of wiffle ball with the CMU percussion studio. This mindset influences all avenues of his teaching, whether students want to audition for youth orchestras or universities, play for pure enjoyment, or any other reason.