We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ben Freeman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ben below.
Alright, Ben thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)
At the beginning of the pandemic, I had just recognized that I wanted to devote my creative energies to my music. I thought I would produce some songs with a friend but learned that his attention was elsewhere. I was pretty down on my ability to make headway — I could play piano and sing but had little sense of how to make something on a computer. I signed up for a class on what was then called learnmonthly.com (now Studio). Guided by “musical explorer” and YouTuber Andrew Huang, the class took us through the process of producing three songs in real time, with deadlines and small group feedback. It was a total paradigm shift for me. The way Andrew illustrated technical aspects of music production in the context of real decisions about sound obliterated my “I can’t do it” story and replaced it with a story about my developing skill and competence to face new challenges.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Ben Freeman is a musician, theater artist, group facilitator, and ritual leader based in New York City. Across all domains, his work aims to lift up for examination both the serious and silly sides of life, offering participants a portal into exploring what’s real within themselves and in social context.
As a musician, I like to say I sing about the big hurts and quiet joys of being alive. My first memory of singing is singing along to “My Heart Will Go On” in the back of my mom’s minivan in the late 90s. I found my voice initially in musical theater and grew into my songwriting and production sensibilities with my first EP, Providence, in 2015, my self-produced album Quiet Fury (released 2020-2022), and the songs I’ve been putting out since (“Long Distance,” “Curiosity,” and “Baby Mine” in 2023 and a cover of “The Rose” so far in 2024, with more around the corner). My music lives somewhere between Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell. Heartbreak is never far from what I’m writing about. But sex and sensuality are in there too.
As a facilitator, I’m proud of building curriculum for and facilitating two adult-focused rite of passage programs at Lab/Shul, an experimental synagogue where I currently work; facilitating an intergenerational LGBTQ+ storytelling group at social service agency for older adults in Boston; and facilitating sessions of Good Questions Lab, a critical media literacy initiative at Lucasfilm. I see the curation and cultivation of a healthy group dynamic as an art form in itself and find helping groups find their own sense of identity and agency within a learning or spiritual development process to be deeply stimulating.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
In my creative journey I wear several hats. Ultimately, though, what motivated me to explore acting as a kid, to train as an educator and spiritual care provider in early adulthood, and what drives my practice as a musician, theater artist, ritual designer and facilitator now is a common thread — a curiosity about people and the ways in which we might connect more deeply through understanding ourselves better. The responses to my songs that have meant the most to me are the ones where someone says, “I’ve had that experience, but I didn’t have language for it — and your words and melody gave me a container to feel into it for myself.” Similarly, my single proudest moment as a theater maker remains the debrief following a production of Sunday in the Park with George that I directed in college where cast members identified how respected and invited in as equal collaborators they felt in the process. I’m deeply committed to the idea that it matters to model in microcosm what we would like the world “outside” to be like.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
When I read adrienne maree brown’s “Emergent Strategy” during graduate school, I felt with some degree of seriousness that everything I ever needed to know was contained within the pages of that book. Or, more precisely, in the relationship between the book and me. Emergent Strategy is, in brown’s words, “a guidebook for getting in right relationship with change, using our own nature and that of creatures beyond human as our teachers.” There are many aspects of the book that have left a lasting impact on me, prominent among them the idea that “what we practice at the small scale sets the stage for the larger system.” This is a way of saying: every action that we take helps create other people’s templates of what’s possible. I see my artistic and facilitation work as a form of activism for a world of greater emotional depth, nuance, and authenticity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.benfreeman.net
- Instagram: @bshatteredbfree
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-freeman-mdiv-7893385b/
- Twitter: @bshatteredbfree
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bshatteredbfree
- Other: My music streaming profiles: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5zxRDs7JdyUwy2plf0Chv3?si=0vnJBXIbRf-oGX2HkBk6gQ https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ben-freeman/1523062548 https://tidal.com/browse/artist/6012466 https://bshatteredbfree.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Cat Laine Anthony “AM.” Andrade, Jr. Robbie Michaels Emily Conner-Simons