Ben Hedquist is the director of Jazz and Popular Music Studies at Glendale Community College(GCC), directing ensembles, teaching acoustic and electric bass lessons, and teaching composition and arranging. Prior to GCC, he served on the faculty at Arizona State University and as the Education Program Coordinator at The Nash, Phoenix's jazz performance and education center. He holds a doctorate in double bass performance from ASU where he studied under double bass virtuoso Catalin Rotaru.

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As a double bassist, Hedquist is known for his versatility and feels at home playing classical or jazz music. As a classical musician, he has performed with the West Valley Symphony, Phoenix Opera, and as Principal Bassist for the Musica Nova Orchestra. Hedquist has also performed in chamber concerts with the ASU String Faculty as part of the Stradivarius Concert Series at the Musical Instrument Museum, with violinist Mark Fewer (McGill University) as part of the Lotus Land Project and performs solo recitals throughout the Phoenix Metropolitan area. In 2016, he was placed as runner-up for the Arizona State University’s Concert of the Soloists Competition.

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As a jazz bassist, Hedquist was a finalist in the 2016 European Double Bass Congress jazz bass competition held in Prague, Czech Republic. He performs regularly with Phoenix-based musicians such as Michael Kocour, Jeff Libman, Eric Rasmussen, and Dom Moio, and also with the adventurous jazz sextet Running from Bears. He has performed with a growing number of jazz notables, including Joe Locke, Peter Bernstein, George Garzone, Miguel Zenon, Glenn Zaleski, John Hollenbeck, Chris Cheek, Harold Maybern, John Clayton, and Lewis Nash.

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As a composer, he writes original music for groups that he leads and co-leads, including Running From Bears, UNION32, HedBand, Sleigher, and his straight-ahead projects. He has been commissioned to arrange two jazz big band charts for Valley Jazz Publications to be released in 2025 and 2026.  In 2019, Hedquist released his first album titled “The Mists of Uncertainty,” featuring all original compositions. 

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