Blending a life in music with a living in tech, Ben Morss earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Music at Harvard University, followed by a doctorate in Music Composition at the University of California at Davis. His college senior thesis, “Composer’s Friend,” was an early AI system that composed original tunes.

Presently Ben is the Developer Evangelist at DeepL, helping everyone access DeepL’s world-class AI experiences and language translations. Previously he spent 9.5 years at Google, where he was a Product Manager for advanced APIs in Chrome and a Developer Advocate for a better web. Before that, he worked as a software engineer for companies like The New York Times. His work has involved creating conferences and giving talks around the world, from Brazil to Nigeria and Vietnam.

Ben has played piano and arranged for platinum-selling bands such as Cake and Wheatus. His playing was used in the films Sidewalks of New York and L.I.E. His band, Onward Chariots, has been reviewed in blogs and magazines and played on indie radio stations worldwide; they toured Europe twice and put out a single on the storied Spanish indie pop label Elefant Records. Their songs have been streamed online hundreds of thousands of times, and their song “A New Beginning” was used on international television.

Ben is an alumnus of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. He and Susan DiLallo wrote two musicals based on the Angelina Ballerina book series and PBS show for Vital Theater and HIT Entertainment. Two of his other shows are published by Samuel French, and his anarchist rock opera was workshopped at Millikin University and Theatre 167. Ben created music for Anansi the Story King at Georgetown University, and he has conducted and played for shows ranging from Annie to Tosca. He arranged the music for the stage adaptation of Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical. Ben played with the California acid-jazz group 11:11 at festivals such as NXNW and SXSW.

Ben’s classical-pop-theatre crossover group, the Infinite Orchestra, played an ASCAP showcase at the Make Music New York festival in Lincoln Square alongside groups from the New York Philharmonic, City Opera, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He contributes analyses of pop music and music theory for his influential blog and to websites like Soundfly and Popmatters.

These days you can still find Ben making music with Ancient Babies, analyzing pop songs right here at Rock Theory, and dreaming up “Steve Jobs and the Fundamental Beauty of the Universe”.