BEN LAMAR GAY is a composer, conjurer, channeler of cosmopolitan Blues, and patently eclectic artist who Jeff Parker calls “hands down, one of my favorite musicians on the planet today.” Gay is a Southside Chicago native who was raised in the tutelage of the legendary AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). In 2021, Gay released the critically-acclaimed album Open Arms to Open Us via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records. In 2022 he released Certain Reveries, an album of duo compositions on International Anthem, and an accompanying film, Balogun, in tribute to the late Eddie Harris. In 2023, Gay was a Mellon Foundation Archives Innovation Fellow with Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation in Chicago. As composer in residence with The National Theater of France in 2024, Gay wrote original music for Dorothee Munyaneza’s Inconditionelles. In June 2025, Gay released Yowzers via International Anthem.
Bio as of 10/2026