Although curling was part of the inaugural Winter Olympics in 1924, it would not return to the official program until 1998 – just a few months before Ben Richardson was born. Now he takes to the ice in northern Italy as part of the U.S. men’s curling team this month.
And curling isn’t his only talent. Richardson graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2021.
“He still plays cello a little bit, but it's mostly all about curling now,” said his father, Harry, a pianist with the North Royalton City Schools’ music program. “It was a little bit disappointing that he decided on curling after we spent all that money at CIM … but I'm happy he's incredibly happy, and he's going as far as he is with what he's doing.”
Curlers slide large, rounded stones across the ice, while teammates use brooms or brushes to sweep a path toward the “mark.” With origins in Scotland, it’s also popular in Canada. That’s where Ben Richardson’s maternal grandparents are from. His mother, Rochelle McGhee, is a violin/voila teacher and started him on cello age 3 years old.
“I was in a string quartet,” she said. “He was always pointing to the cello, and he was always kind of a big kid. He was 10 pounds, 7 ounces when he was born. I thought, ‘Oh, cello would be a great instrument for him, because it's not what mom's doing. And maybe he'll stick with it longer.’”
Music was Ben’s first love while growing up in Seattle.
“We discovered he had a beautiful singing voice,” Harry Richardson said. “He joined Northwest Boychoir and became a soloist.”
That even led to some unusual recording work.
“They had to have a boy soprano sing all the notes chromatically up the keyboard for a software program,” McGhee said.
The recording was used for Cinesamples, a brand of virtual composing software. His father still uses it in his work.
“Every time I play a note on my keyboard, when I'm set to that patch, it's his voice,” he said. “It was very surreal.”
As his voice changed, Ben concentrated less on singing and more on cello and a new interest: curling. Rochelle’s parents were well-known in Oregon’s curling community after moving there in the 1960s. They suggested the sport for their grandson.
“Literally from the first time he stepped out on the ice, he was just obsessed,” McGhee said. “I realized that was his passion, not cello. That slide that you do when you are curling, you go out and you have to have a lot of balance and flexibility. And those things kind of came easy for him because of his ballet background.”
Ben still decided to pursue music in college, heading to his father’s hometown to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He managed to do that while taking part in events like the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics.
“He's just always been an incredibly hard worker,” Harry Richardson said. “When he graduated from CIM, I thought, ‘How are you going to be able to manage pursuing the sport that basically doesn't pay anything with holding down a full-time job?’”
Ben now works in IT while also serving as associate principal cello for the Mankato Symphony in Minnesota - all while pursuing his Olympic dream.
