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Introducing Pianist Ben Collins-Siegel

Courtesy Todd Rosenberg

By Sanford Josephson
July 2, 2025
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A wonderfully talented young pianist whose creativity, maturity, and musical taste immediately drew me to his playing.
—Martin Bejerano

This article first appeared in Jersey Jazz Magazine.

I first saw

Ben Collins-Siegel

piano
b.2007

" data-original-title="" title="">Ben Collins-Siegel play piano in July 2019 at the Roselle Park Jazz Festival. Then a 12-year-old seventh grader at Maplewood Middle School, he led off a performance by the JTole Jazz Orchestra of

Thad Jones

trumpet
1923 - 1986

" data-original-title="" title="">Thad Jones' "Counter Block," written for the

Count Basie

piano
1904 - 1984

" data-original-title="" title="">Count Basie Orchestra. It was stunning.

JTole stands for

Julius Tolentino

sousaphone
b.1975

" data-original-title="" title="">Julius Tolentino, the Jazz Director at Livingston, NJ's Newark Academy and Director of the RP Festival. Collins-Siegel had already been studying with Tolentino and began attending Newark Academy in eighth grade. When I asked Tolentino about that performance six years ago, he said, "He is playing well beyond his years and has a passion and drive for this music that is for real."

Collins-Siegel graduated from Newark Academy in June and will be attending the University of Miami's Frost School of Music in the fall on a full scholarship. He will be part of Frost's Stamps Scholars Program, which forms a very selective chamber ensemble every year. Three of the four years, the ensemble is a classical group. This fall, it's a jazz quintet. Before he heads off to Miami, though, the 18-year-old Collins-Siegel will spend his summer as a member of Carnegie Hall's NYO Jazz Orchestra, one of 23 high school students from across the country selected to tour with this orchestra, led by trumpeter and Artistic Director

Sean Jones

trumpet
b.1978

" data-original-title="" title="">Sean Jones. The orchestra will present a concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, July 26, and then will tour Latin America. Vocalist

Luciana Souza

vocals

" data-original-title="" title="">Luciana Souza will be a special guest performer.

At the time of our mid-June interview, Collins-Siegel was beginning to play through the music for the Carnegie Hall concert and tour, "to get a little more comfortable with it before we play together in person. None of us have played together yet. We meet at SUNY Purchase. We'll have a couple of weeks to rehearse the music and then we perform at Carnegie Hall and tour for a couple of weeks." The music will include works by

Antonio Carlos Jobim

piano
1927 - 1994

" data-original-title="" title="">Antonio Carlos Jobim, Count Basie, and a Carnegie Hall-commissioned work by Cuban-American drummer and composer

Dafnis Prieto

drums
b.1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Dafnis Prieto. Jones is "incredibly excited to have Ben with NYO Jazz this summer. His audition was spectacular, and we're sure he'll be a welcome addition to the band."

Collins-Siegel recalled that he was "always set on going to a New York school for college—either Juilliard or the Manhattan School of Music —because New York is the jazz capital of the world. But, I feel I've already experienced a lot of the New York scene since I live in New Jersey, and I'm pretty close by. I'm interested in having a different experience, being in a different environment, meeting new people, and immersing myself with different people. I think I'll get a more well-rounded experience at the Frost School of Music—more of a college experience. I can study non-musical classes like psychology and philosophy, whereas if I was at a conservatory, it would be just focused on music."

Another reason he was attracted to the Frost School was the opportunity to study with pianist

Martin Bejerano

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Martin Bejerano, who is on the faculty. "He has a lot of Cuban influence; he's very rooted in the tradition but also in a lot of contemporary music. Out of all the schools and all of the piano teachers, he's the one I wanted to study with the most."

Bejerano described Collins-Siegel as "a wonderfully talented young pianist whose creativity, maturity, and musical taste immediately drew me to his playing. He possesses a formidable technique, a sophisticated sense of harmony, and a great feel—especially for such a young musician! However, it is most impressive how he uses these abilities in musical and intentional ways. I am very much looking forward to working with him these next four years!"

Collins-Siegel began playing piano at the age of four. A few years later, he started participating in the program at Jazz House Kids. His private piano teacher for the past five or six years has been

Bob Himmelberger

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Bob Himmelberger, who Collins-Siegel said, "has been such a meaningful mentor in my life. He really exposes me to a lot of challenging music and gets me really comfortable playing a lot of tunes that have complicated chord changes."

Himmelberger, who teaches at Newark Academy, remembered meeting Collins-Siegel when the pianist was 12 years old. "He studied classical and some jazz before he met me, so he could read music. He also had perfect pitch, but not just hearing single notes —he could hear all the inner voices of the chords. Plus, he could remember lines that a soloist played and play them back in tempo with small fingers. For instance, he knew all the tunes from a Louis and Ella album, including intros and endings, which is crazy, as if he did this in a previous life.

"There are so many things that we went through together," Himmelberger said, "checking out all the greats, from

Bud Powell

piano
1924 - 1966

" data-original-title="" title="">Bud Powell to

Bill Evans

piano
1929 - 1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Bill Evans,

Chick Corea

piano
1941 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Chick Corea,

Wynton Kelly

piano
1931 - 1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Wynton Kelly. I'm so grateful for the experience and privilege of meeting and teaching Ben."

When Collins-Siegel played "Counter Block" in 2019, he hadn't been playing jazz that long. "But, Mr. T is such a great educator," he said. "He has the right balance about bringing it down to your level but challenging you to play beyond your comfort zone. I remember being so nervous to play that in front of hundreds of people. Just the experience of working through that intro and getting it right got me playing to the next level."

Six years since that performance, Tolentino simply said, "Ben—BCS as we call him —is an incredible talent. I've been fortunate to work with him at Newark Academy since middle school. By sophomore year, I started bringing him on my own gigs, where he's played alongside greats like (trumpeter)

Bruce Harris

trumpet
b.1979

" data-original-title="" title="">Bruce Harris, (trumpeter)

Josh Evans

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Josh Evans, (trombonist)

Steve Davis

trombone
b.1967

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Davis, (bassist)

Mike Karn

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Mike Karn, and (drummer)

Winard Harper

drums
b.1962

" data-original-title="" title="">Winard Harper. Through Karn, he even began subbing with the

John Pizzarelli

guitar
b.1960

" data-original-title="" title="">John Pizzarelli Trio. He's grown tremendously, and I'm excited to see him continue his journey at the Frost School in the Stamps Group."

While attending middle school and high school, Collins-Siegel has collected a long list of musical awards and accomplishments. They include: Outstanding Soloist awards at the

Charles Mingus

bass, acoustic
1922 - 1979

" data-original-title="" title="">Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition, being part of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival, playing solo piano at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Gala, being named a 2023 Young Arts finalist, receiving the 2023 Steinway & Sons Jazz Piano Award and Scholarship, and playing at the 2024 Vail Jazz Workshop.

The most memorable experience, though, was the opportunity to perform three times in the finals of JALC's Essentially Ellington Competition, topped off by Newark Academy's First Place win in 2024. "It's always inspiring," he said, "to be surrounded by kids who have the same passion as you do and to know that in so many places you've never been or never heard of, there are kids committed to the music and mastering it. It was a really great experience to show off all of our hard work and get a first-hand experience of all the hard work all of these other bands across the country have put in." In fact, one of the student musicians Collins-Siegel met at Essentially Ellington—bassist Laesio Littlejohn from Plano West High School in Dallas—will be joining him as a member of the Frost School's Stamps Quintet.

Another special memory, in April 2023, was being invited to Steinway Hall for a performance by bassist

Christian McBride

bass
b.1972

" data-original-title="" title="">Christian McBride and his band, which included guitarist

Russell Malone

guitar
1963 - 2024

" data-original-title="" title="">Russell Malone and pianist

Benny Green

piano
b.1963

" data-original-title="" title="">Benny Green. "They brought three younger pianists. The other two were

Caelan Cardello

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Caelan Cardello and

Esteban Castro

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Esteban Castro. There was sort of a meet and greet before the performance, we all played on the fancy Steinway piano, and we all sat in with Christian McBride's performance at the very end." Collins-Siegel's piano hero is

Oscar Peterson

piano
1925 - 2007

" data-original-title="" title="">Oscar Peterson. "He's my Number 1 influence. But I've exposed myself to some more modern players like

Keith Jarrett

piano
b.1945

" data-original-title="" title="">Keith Jarrett,

Mulgrew Miller

piano
1955 - 2013

" data-original-title="" title="">Mulgrew Miller, and

Brad Mehldau

piano
b.1970

" data-original-title="" title="">Brad Mehldau, and I've also exposed myself to a lot of classical artists like Ravel and Stravinsky. And, Sondheim is also one of my favorite composers."

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