Zen Ben started playing oboe in 3rd grade at Carpenter School in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.  Growing up, he moved around a lot, attending school at South Burlington Middle School and High School in  Vermont, and finishing his secondary education at Kennebunk High School in Maine.  In Vermont as an adolescent, Zen Ben started exploring the possibilities of amplified oboe and usage of the oboe as a rock instrument, first with his high school friend Matt Hutton's garage rock band, covering the woman's moans and melody for Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf."   Matt later went on to form the bands The Red Telephone and Birdwatchers of America.

He attended college at the University of Maine in Orono where he received a degree in English, but later returned to college at the University of Southern Maine to pursue a second degree in Music Performance, studying under Portland Symphony Orchestra's principal oboist Neil Boyer.

In early adulthood, Zen Ben traveled everywhere with his oboe, sitting in on an instant's notice with jam bands, reggae bands, acoustic folk bands and the hippies with the solar-powered stage and the purple bus who would always be in parking lots of Grateful Dead or Phish concerts or Bread and Puppet.  In Orono and Portland, he further perfected his rock oboe sound by sitting in with numerous local bands by invitation.  In 2005, he met Grateful Dead keyboardist Vince Welnick and performed with him at The Alehouse in Portland.

Although he has played in orchestras, concert bands, jazz combos and wind ensembles, Zen Ben has always had a passion for playing rock music on oboe, and studies both his predecessors and contemporaries who are known to have used oboe in a modern context.  Among his greatest influences are the flute-rock band Jethro Tull who paved the way conceptually for woodwind rock, and the Dutch post-gloom metal band Another Messiah--who also incorporate significant rock use of the oboe.  His favorite band of all time is the Australian band, The Church.

Psychedelic garage rock, metal, grunge, ounk, Pink Floyd, dance pop and Beethoven also run high on his influences.

Hoboe was founded by Zen Ben in 2000 as an outlet to perform original songs with oboe in a creative modern setting.  For its first seven years however, Hoboe was more of a concept than a band.

"I woke up one day," says Zen Ben, "and realized that if I waited around to find three musicians that were looking to backup an oboe in a rock band, I would probably end up waiting my whole life."

So he started booking gigs and getting musicians to play them.  "Getting musicians to play a gig is a lot easier than getting them to join a band."  For the first seven years, Hoboe had actually never been the same band twice.  The contanstly rotating lineup of musicians, each with their own distinguishing sound, helped Zen Ben adapt to playing a diverse range of musical styles.

Zen Ben places among his highest ambitions in life, to "deliver the oboe to the doorsteps of rock and roll," to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and perhaps to write a symphony or two.

He currently lives in Portland, Maine, Hoboe's home city, also home of the locomotive foundry, the Portland Company (1846-1978).