Benjamin Hansen

Dr. Benjamin Hansen is the founder and Artistic Director of The Helios Ensemble, an award-winning SATB semi-professional choral group in Tucson, Arizona, Interim Co-director of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and the Director of Music at Catalina United Methodist Church. Hansen received his BA from Yale, singing in the Yale Whiffenpoofs; his MM in voice from the Catholic University of America; and his MM in conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He received a DMA in choral conducting at the University of Arizona. Dr. Hansen has conducted such works as Bach's Mass in B Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Mass in C, Duruflé's Requiem, Howell's Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, Poulenc's Mass in G, and Vaughan Williams' Three Shakespeare Songs. He has studied conducting with Bruce Chamberlain, Elizabeth Schauer, Leo Nestor, Jerry Blackstone, Mark Gibson, Earl Rivers, Fiora Contino, and Robert Sund. Dr. Hansen was the Director of Choral Activities at Cincinnati State College, and a 2010 Conducting Fellow at the Chorus America Conducting Symposium in Houston, Texas.