In this episode of The Amusing and the Profound Podcast, Pat Long, Dean of the Schools of the Arts and Humanities, sits down with SU Adjunct Professor of Music Rick Benjamin to talk about the Symposium on Historic American Music at SU. A conductor, tubist, pianist, and researcher, Rick is the founder and director of the renowned Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and serves as the director of the Symposium. They discuss his musical origins on the New Jersey coast, his adventures as a teenage studio musician in New York City, getting accepted to Juilliard, getting in trouble at Juilliard, and the chance discovery that changed his life forever.