Graduating music major Benjamin Saetern, flute, is this year’s winner of the UC Davis Concert Band Soloist Competition. He performs Cécile Chaminade’s Concertino with the Concert Band, directed by Pete Nowlen, at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on May 21 at 7 p.m. He is also a proud Dean’s Honor List recipient in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis and is passionate about ensemble performance, music education, and community engagement through the arts.

Saetern is a fourth-year music major on performance track and has studied flute with Stacey Pelinka. In addition to flute, he also performs on oboe.

He has performed with and/or subbed with Symphony D’Oro, the Camellia Symphony, Davis High School Symphony Orchestra, the C.K. McClatchy High School Music Program, Davis Community Church Chamber Orchestra, and the Point Pleasant United Methodist Church.

Saetern has served as the flute section manager of the Concert Band for the past two years and has also performed with the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, Concert Choir, and Flute Choir at UC Davis.

In addition to performing, he currently teaches flute and oboe at C.K. McClatchy High School, where he supports developing student musicians.

In summer 2024, Saetern was a music professional assistant at Sacramento’s Broadway at Music Circus where he worked on 42^nd Street, printing, copying, binding and editing the music for the show.