Ben LaMar Gay
Cold Was the Ground
Music
Ben LaMar Gay is a composer and cornetist who moves sound, color, and space through folkloric filters to produce electro-acoustic collages. A Chicago native, Ben’s true technique is giving life to an idea while exploring and expanding on the term ‘Americana.’ With his band, the Ben LaMar Gay Quartet, he will dive into the hypnotism of their cosmopolitan blues, with old and new tales as well as selections from their latest release Yowzers via International Anthem. This work represents a leap forward in the lexicon of Gay’s recorded output and a veritable masterwork of ancient inner-body rhythms and intuitive melodic storytelling. The quartet consists of Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, electronics, and vocals; Tommaso Moretti on drums; Edinho Gerber on guitar; and Katie Ernst on bass.
“…Elevating the diverse sounds of earth to the heavens.”– Andy Beta, Pitchfork
“Ben LaMar Gay’s music is full of wonder. It takes in the endearing glow of the natural world, plus the endless variety of man-made refractions, and then processes those beams and flickers into something strikingly original.” – AFROPUNK
“There is no one universe for Ben LaMar Gay, he just sonic booms from one sound to another.”– NPR Music
The Dark: PS21’s fearless winter festival of live performance radiating across Columbia County
The Dark is a new annual festival from PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance that celebrates and elevates the depths of winter. Taking place February 16–22, 2026, the festival will unfold at PS21 and across Columbia County—in theatres, restaurants, libraries, saunas, and outdoor public spaces. Featuring more than 60 international artists and over 80 performances, The Dark offers a packed week of world-class contemporary performance, installation, music, dance, and theatre—all exploring winter as a time of community and solitude, fire and ice, darkness and light. A major new attraction for the region, the festival positions Columbia County as a year-round cultural destination—not just a summer one.
It is a light in the dark—and The Dark is the light.
Secure your Festival Pass to The Dark now which includes tickets to every performance along with a complimentary sauna and ice skating session!
PS21 is proud to partner with Wave Farm Radio, WGXC 90.7 FM to bring artists and events from The Dark to their airwaves. The Hudson Valley-based international transmission arts organization joins us for this celebration of live performance throughout Columbia County, in the heart of winter, making the voices of visionary artists available to all.
Special Remote Broadcast: PS21 “The Dark” – Ben LaMar Gay
Feb 18, 2026: 8:30 pm – 10pm
The Ben LaMar Gay Quartet will dive into the hypnotism of their avant cosmopolitan blues with old and new tales along with selections from their latest release,”Yowzers” via International Anthem.
Ben LaMar Gay is a genuine original. An imbued 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).
With his first instrument, the cornet, and an intuitive sense of self-production, in youth he traversed the diversity of the city’s music scenes (jazz, hip hop, house, electronic, rock, avant garde, salsa, latin jazz, et al) before embarking on a several-year residential relocation to Brazil. Beloved by listeners and collaborators alike for his ability to absorb and poetically refract the sound of any context he’s immersed in, Gay’s return home to Chicago in the early 2010s marked the beginning of a compositional output that has since been referred to by WIRE Magazine as “Pan-Americana.”
As elusive as he is prolific, across seven under-the-radar years of work Gay diligently composed, produced and recorded seven collections of original music before compiling and issuing his unreleased ‘greatest hits’ as a debut album – Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun – for International Anthem in 2018. Also in 2018 Gay composed an original score for the Tribeca award-winning short doc The Good Fight. In 2019, he composed an original score for the Brazilian underground carnival profile This Is Bate Bola, and debuted new music commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Also in 2019, he composed and performed a duet with the DuSable Bridge while it was raised over the Chicago River. For Time:Spans Festival 2021, at DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City, Gay debuted a new composition – “Known Better. Still Lit” – that was commissioned and performed by Wet Ink Ensemble. Later in 2021, Gay released the critically-acclaimed album Open Arms to Open Us via International Anthem & 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 – which he staged, directed, filmed, and scored entirely himself.
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.
Ben LaMar Gay: cornet, vocals,synth, flute
Tommaso Moretii: drums, vocals
Edinho Gerber: guitar, vocal, flute
Katie Ernst: Bass, vocals
The Dark is supported through a Market New York grant, awarded to PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance from Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.
Digital content coverage for The Dark is supported by Bloomberg Connects.
The Dark‘s business sponsors are Millay Arts and The Mountains Media.
Thank you to the many generous individual supporters who helped fund The Dark.
PS21’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
While this performance does not have reserved seating, we are happy to accommodate any specific accessibility needs.
Please reach out to Adriana at boxoffice@ps21chatham.org, and she will coordinate with our front-of-house team to ensure your experience is comfortable and enjoyable.
The Crandell Theatre offers complimentary devices to assist hearing-impaired patrons, including:
Assisted Listening: Hear amplified audio from the house speakers via headset.
Our staff are happy to help you select and set up a device to ensure a more enjoyable movie-going experience.
