Ben Lapps

Artist Information

Biography

Acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Ben Lapps, 19, has been performing professionally for 5 years. Picking up his first guitar at age 12, Ben soon began writing his own music, and recorded his first album, The New Color, at age 14. He was the youngest participant in the 2008 International Fingerstyle Guitar Championships and the 2010 Canadian Guitar Championships.

At 17, Ben released his second full album "See, the Sky" which showcases his talent in composition with especially rich, patient acoustic guitar work. Inspired by acoustic guitar icons such as Justin King, Michael Hedges, and Thomas Leeb, his music is truly unique – beautiful to listen to and mesmerizing to watch.

In 2011, Ben received the prestigious OAPN Young Artist Initiative award for his talent and accomplishments as a professional musician at such a young age.
http://www.oapn.org/2011YoungArtistInitiative.html

Ben has performed his solo acoustic guitar act at venues such as The Aronoff for Red's Uncut in 2011, Cincinnati’s Midpoint Music Festival 2009, 2010 and 2011, Philadelphia' Elsefest 2012 opening for Andy McKee, Eden Park for EdenSong 2011, multiple performances at The Blue Wisp including opening for jazz great Frank Vignola, Cincinnati’s Fountain Square for the MLB 2010 Civil Rights Day Reds Game and featured performer for 2010 RedsFest at the Cincinnati Convention Center, Fountain Square for Acoustic Thursdays, Taste of Blue Ash, Leo Coffeehouse, Xavier University, The Phoenix, Paul Brown Stadium, Country Clubs such as Heritage Club, Four Bridges, and Terrace Park, restaurants such as Relish Modern Tapas in Deerfield, Anthony’s of West Chester, Pitrelli’s in Mason, Mesh, The Havana Martini Club, Northside Tavern as well as performing at The Homestead Resort in Virginia.

Ben has performed at the 2010 and 2011 Children's Charity Classic Cabaret in Lexington, KY and the 2010 and 2011 Texas Wounded Warrior Program in Tyler, TX. Ben was the featured performer at Macy's United Way Kick-Off in 2009 and Ben also performed at the 2009 and 2010 Mason Heritage Festival, is part of Mason's Thursday Night Live Series and performed at Mason's 2010 Independence Day Red, Rhythm and Boom Celebration.

The Evendale, OH Chamber of Commerce and Gorman Heritage Farm recently sponsored "An Evening with Ben Lapps" concert.

http://www.chca-oh.org/calendarItem.aspx?pageId=85925&eventDate=634438656000000000

Ben's music is available on itunes, Amazon.com, CD Baby etc.

Contact Ben at benlappsmusic@gmail.com or see more at www.benlapps.com

Instrumentation

Ben Lapps - Acoustic Guitar

Discography

The New Color LP (2009)
See, the Sky LP (2011)
Giraffe - Single (2012)

Official Website

http://www.benlapps.com

Links

• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• ReverbNation
• CDBaby

Audio

• Giraffe
  Listen  
• For The West
  Listen  
• Heartbeat
  Listen  
• St. Patty
  Listen  
• Making Mountains
  Listen  

Video

Ben Lapps promo

Ben Lapps - Phunkdified

Photo Gallery

Press

• Fingerstyle Phenom adds Flash and Fireworks [+ Show ]
  

  Fingerstyle phenom provides flash, fireworks Janelle Gelfand jgelfand@enquirer.com The Cincinnati...Fingerstyle phenom provides flash, fireworks
  Janelle Gelfand jgelfand@enquirer.com
  The Cincinnati Enquirer
  March 11, 2011 ET
  It all started with a gui­tar from Costco.
  
  "My broth­er got a gui­tar for Christmas, and I found it in his room one day. It was just a cheap gui­tar, but I just kind of liked it and kept go­ing," said Ben Lapps, of Ma­son.
  
  The 17-year-old gui­tarist was giving an impromptu demonstration of his "fin­gerstyle" wizardry, a technique he picked up and taught him­self from YouTube videos when he was 12. It's a mesmerizing and sometimes flashy style of fin­ger-picking. Both of Lapps' hands trav­el up and down the neck of his gui­tar, punctuated by rhythmic slaps of the gui­tar body and brief displays of fin­ger-picking fireworks.
  
  Lapp, a junior at Cinc­innati Chris­tian Hills Academy, enjoys the whole spectrum of sounds he
  can cre­ate on his gui­tar.
  
  "That's why it's my in­stru­ment," he said. "It's not only pleas­ing in terms of the sound, it's such a show, it's entertain­ment to watch some­one play."
  
  Lapp will be perform­ing numbers from his sec­ond album, "See, the Sky," at 7 p.m. tonight at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Norwood.
  
  He's a phe­nom who re­leased his first album when he was 14. He's already played at Mid­point Mu­sic Fes­tival, A Taste of Blue Ash, on Fountain Square, Redsfest 2010 and in mul­ti­ple venues around the region.
  
  And he appears with A-list perform­ers. In November, he opened for jazz gui­tarist Frank Vi­gnola at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club, Downtown. Last year, he appeared along with stars such as Bron­son Arroyo for Redsfest 2010.
  
  Lapps' biggest au­di­ence was 30,000, at a Fourth of July cel­ebration in Ma­son last summer. He took it in stride.
  
  "I always wonder if I'm go­ing to get nervous. But I don't. I just get out there and play. It's lit­erally the most nat­ural thing in the world for me," he said.
  
  His mu­sic is in­spired by lit­era­ture, vi­su­al art ("magic re­alism" artist Rob Gonsalves in­spired a song on his new album) and even the movies. A song he wrote for his first disc, "Jasper Street," evokes a scene from Disney's "101 Dalma­tians."
  
  "It sounds like the two bad guys Horace and Jasper, sneaking around. It's very sneaky," he explained.
  
  Three years lat­er, the ti­tle track of "See, the Sky" was in­spired by a book he read in school: Anatole France's "The Gods will have Blood." The mu­sic is a dreamy soundscape of repeating pat­terns that drift along - a pleas­ant style that might be called "minimalist" in oth­er arenas. In an­oth­er song, "St. Patty," a snip­pet of a melody eventually emerges.
  It's hypnot­ic and effort­less.
  
  When he's compos­ing, Lapps said, he doesn't start with a tune, but prefers just to sit and impro­vise.
  
  "When I write mu­sic, I don't know how it works. I lit­erally just play," he said.
  
  Lapps' earli­est child­hood mem­o­ry was lis­tening to his old­er broth­er, Jonathan, practice the piano.
  
  "He was the only per­son that I knew that I could watch writing a song, because he wrote a lot of orig­inal compo­sitions - which I thought was more inter­est­ing than playing written mu­sic on a page. To watch some­one write a piece of mu­sic is so much cool­er. That was one of the sparks for me," he said.
  
  Clearly, he's endowed with nat­ural ability, and a technique that he has honed with up to 10 hours per day of playing.
  
  Fin­gerstyle is be­ing discovered by this new
  generation of emerg­ing artists, such as Lapp, via the Inter­net, especially YouTube. Lapps' idols include Justin King, Michael Hedges, Andy McKee and Thomas Leeb - acous­tic gui­tar icons who have YouTube videos that "you can sit and watch, over and over," Lapp said.
  
  One of his upcom­ing high­lights will be appearing on April 3 in Reds Uncut at the Aronoff Center, part of Opening Day cel­ebrations.
  
  Eventually he wants to simply "play mu­sic."
  
  And he'll be able to do it in style, because now he owns an Ir­ish-made Lowden, a much nicer gui­tar.
  
  

• Ben Lapps - "Five Questions" [+ Show ]
  

  Ben Lapps – “Five Questions” 1) I've been told you're a "prodigy." How old were you when you star...Ben Lapps – “Five Questions”
  
  1) I've been told you're a "prodigy." How old were you when you started playing guitar, and what do you remember about when you realized this was something special to you?
  
  I started playing guitar when I was about twelve, and it wasn’t until about two years in, when I saw a video of Justin King playing his song “Squaredance,” that I really started to take it to the next level. I learned how to play in this style, and I just fell in love with the acoustic guitar, specifically the incredible variety of sounds it could make.
  
  2) Describe your musical style and your influences, and why those artists resonate with you.
  
  My style is universally known as “fingerstyle acoustic guitar.” It’s been gaining popularity in recent years because of its visual appeal on Youtube from modern players like Andy Mckee, Justin King, and Thomas Leeb. These were the first people that inspired me to take up the style because of the amazing percussive textures that really make one player sound like a full acoustic band.
  
  3) You recently released an album. Is it your first? What's the album's message?
  
  I have just one album released so far, which I recorded at age 14. It’s titled “The New Color,” which is just a theory I had been thinking about at the time, and the album is just basically a journal of my mind put into songs on an acoustic guitar.
  
  4) Tell me about your performance schedule. How do you balance it against being a young man and student?
  
  For the past few years I’ve had a pretty consistent schedule of 1-2 gigs every weekend. A lot of this is playing at restaurants like Relish Modern Tapas, Anthony’s Bar & Grille, and Pitrelli’s Italian Café for hours, developing my chops and basically getting paid to do what I love. This combined with concerts and festivals like last years’ Mason Heritage Festival, Midpoint Music Festival, and this years’ Red, White and Boom 4th of July festival, and the upcoming Thursday Night Live series make for a fairly busy schedule. It can be difficult at times to balance time between music, friends, and school, but fortunately I have wonderful parents who help me all the time and give me constant support.
  
  5) What are your post high school plans?
  
  Currently, I am a sophomore at CHCA, and by the time I graduate I hope to have a clear view of the next step in my career, whether it be music studies in college, a move to a larger city, or touring all over the US.
  

• Last Weekend's Show [+ Show ]
  

  Saturday, February 6, 2010 Last Weekend's Show This is much overdue, but I thought I would give...Saturday, February 6, 2010
  Last Weekend's Show
  
  This is much overdue, but I thought I would give a brief recap on last weekends show. We held a benefit concert at Coffee Emporium in downtown Cincinnati and had a great time doing so. We raised exactly $423 for Haiti and donated it to Catholic Relief Services last week. Thanks to all that helped make this possible. Just goes to show what can happen when people come together to play and listen to music, talk and listen, and enjoy each-other's company.
  
  Ben Lapps, as usual was amazing. If you haven't checked out his fingerstyle acoustic guitar music, you simply must do so. www.benlapps.com is the best place to do so. The disc is on iTunes as well. It is great music for relaxing and I put it on more than once this week.
  

• Midpoint 2010 - Ben Lapps was built for the guitar! [+ Show ]
  

  CityBeatCincy (@CityBeatCincy) 9/25/10 9:59 PM #mpmf Ben Lapps was built for the guitar, if he wer...CityBeatCincy (@CityBeatCincy)
  9/25/10 9:59 PM
  #mpmf Ben Lapps was built for the guitar, if he weren't so young I'd say it was invented specifically for him.
  

• Ben Lapps - Midpoint Music Festival 2010 [+ Show ]
  

  Ben Lapps Mason, OH • Acoustic/Instrumental When he was 12, Ben Lapps began to show an interest in...Ben Lapps
  Mason, OH • Acoustic/Instrumental
  When he was 12, Ben Lapps began to show an interest in playing acoustic guitar; by age 14, he’d released his first album, The New Color, on an international level and developed his fingerstyle playing to such masterful heights, he was competing in guitar competitions across North America. And all this was just a year ago. At this rate, by the time he’s 20, “fingerstyle guitar” will be renamed “Ben Lapps-style guitar.”
  Dig it: Justin King, Michael Hedges and Thomas Leeb. (MB)
  9:30 p.m. Saturday at The Original Tax Place
  
  

Setlist

A typical set runs about 40 mins and consists of 10-12 mostly original songs. Ben usually plays 2-3 sets per evening.

Basic Requirements

Calendar