Ben Cosgrove’s life might have turned out very differently had the previous owners of the Methuen home his family moved into when he was 4 years old not left behind a piano.
Cosgrove, 38, an accomplished composer and multi-instrumentalist, recalls “picking around on it” when he was 4. His parents, witnessing their son’s interest, hired a piano teacher.
The lessons, which lasted 14 years, were the start of Cosgrove’s musical passion and endeavors – he would go on to play many other musical instruments, receive a college degree in music, perform throughout the United States, and contribute music to radio and film projects.
“He could have been anything, but music was his calling,” said Beverly Winn, a family friend who has known Cosgrove since an early age. “If I’m going to say something kind about Benjamin Cosgrove, it’s that he was so true to himself, followed his dream of music and, while doing that, he brought so many people so much pleasure. I just admire that so much.”
Cosgrove’s formative years also include taking violin lessons, playing the trombone in middle school, which led to learning other instruments, and serving as drum major for Methuen High School’s marching band.
As a teen, he worked as a children’s room page at Nevins Library, where Winn now works as head of technical services.
Since he was a little kid, Cosgrove said, he used music as a way to process his experiences. His piano teacher, Judy Schmidt, encouraged him to write music and taught him how to use music as a way of dealing with the world.
“I’m grateful to the music departments at all of Methuen’s public schools. They gave me so many opportunities to learn new instruments, try new things. I might not be doing what I’m doing today if I hadn’t had such good teachers (during) my entire childhood,” said Cosgrove, who graduated from MHS in 2006 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Harvard.
Cosgrove, a traveling composer-performer, is known for creating music that explores themes of landscape, place and environment. His website, bencosgrove.com, shares that his career includes collaboration “with rock bands to research scientists” and contributing music to the Ken Burns documentary “American Buffalo.”
Over the past 15 years, he has put out a half-dozen studio albums: “Yankee Division” (2011), “Field Studies” (2014), “Salt” (2017), “The Trouble With Wilderness” (2021), “Bearings” (2023) and “Topograph” (2026).
Cosgrove has written essays about sound, art, landscape and place, and he has held residences and fellowships with several institutions and organizations including NASA, the National Park Service and Middlebury College, according to his website.
Earlier this year, Cosgrove completed a year-long commission from Landmark Trust USA, which asked him to write a piece of music and an essay inspired by a historic farmhouse and apple orchard in Vermont. The non-profit preserves historic properties and makes them available as short-term rentals.
Cosgrove is spending 2026 as the artist-in-residence for the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Conn. The museum serves as an educational and cultural institution that focuses on the Connecticut River Valley’s marine environment and maritime heritage.
This winter he will provide it with four new pieces of music, he said, inspired by different moments along the river’s approximate 400-mile length.
In addition, Cosgrove has been working over the last few months with the Downeast Salmon Federation in Maine on a project, he said, that will have him composing a piece inspired by a dam-removal project in Cherryfield, Maine. The organization, according to its website, conserves wild Atlantic salmon, other sea-run fish and their habitats, restores a viable, recreational salmon fishery, and protects important river, recreational, scenic and other ecological resources in eastern Maine.
“Commissions like these have been a really fun part of my career over the last few years – I’ve also been hired to write new songs inspired by a mountain in North Carolina, a brook in Vermont and a wildlife refuge in the Midwest,” he shared. “They provide great opportunities for me to explore and learn about places that I might not have spent much time in otherwise, and it’s always a fun creative challenge to be introduced to a new landscape and have to find a way to write something new and interesting about it.”
Cosgrove has also done some long tours in the U.S. He said that touring is very invigorating – he enjoys the long drives and scenic places, and meeting new people. He has a girlfriend in Maine and his 2-year-old nephew James, son of his sister Kate, a family doctor, is his best friend.
“I’m really happy with the rhythm of my life,” said Cosgrove, who serves as his own booking agent and marketer. “I feel very lucky. What I write music about is what I’m most passionate about.”
Cosgrove has two local shows coming up (see box).
“I certainly hope everybody has a good time,” he said, adding that he hopes audiences will feel more curious about the landscapes in their lives and pay attention to their local geography and what it means to them.
Winn is among the area residents who are glad to see him return to the city.
“He does not conform to this brilliant young man who was going to become a computer whiz or … trade stocks. He loves music, loved it from the start. He certainly wanted to make it his world and he did. He succeeded. I just admire that he had a goal and followed it.”
Methuen native Ben Cosgrove, a traveling composer-performer, creates music that explores themes of landscape, place and environment. His career includes wide-ranging collaborations and contributing music to the Ken Burns documentary “American Buffalo.” Photo courtesy of James Napoli
