Ben Yingst has played music since he was seven years old. He studied several different instruments before deciding to concentrate on bassoon in high school. During that time he played in multiple groups of the Phoenix Symphony Guild Youth Orchestras. He later earned degrees at Arizona State University and the University of Southern California on bassoon. His principal teachers have been Jeffrey Lyman, Judith Farmer, and Bonnie Wolfgang. In addition to the Tucson Symphony, he has played in the Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, the Phoenix Symphony, the Scottsdale Arts Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica UANL in Monterrey, Mexico, and the West Valley Symphony in Sun City. Ben also sometimes makes appearances with two different mutating-instrumentation chamber groups in the Phoenix area: the Paradise Winds and the Mill Avenue Chamber Players. Besides his performing duties, he has previously worked at Interlochen Center for the Arts as a teaching assistant during their summer camp. He currently teaches bassoon at Glendale Community College.
