He is a composer (known as Ben Schaechter) in the world of American musical theater and cabaret, and his songs are performed in venues worldwide.
His work, with Stephen Schwartz as one of his mentors, was selected for development by ASCAP, the Dramatists’s Guild, and the prestigious Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theater Conference (1992).
In its review of Double Identity, The New York Times wrote, “Among [the show's] assets...is the ear-catching score by Ben Schaechter, whose wide-ranging gifts have buoyed recent hit revues like That’s Life!
A documentary concert video, When Our Bubbas and Zeydas Were Young: The Schaechter Sisters on Stage, was released on DVD in 2012 by Ergo Media.
The chorus regularly performs in Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center and at the annual North American Jewish Choral Festival.
They have performed in Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, West Point Military Academy, and Shea Stadium.
The chorus’s live concert recordings are available on YouTube, including the virtual choir video of “Vaserl” they created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than a thousand people worldwide have registered for these sessions, which are partially funded by The Marinus and Minna B. Koster Foundation.
As an actor, he was featured in Anna Deveare Smith's one-woman show at Carnegie Hall as the "simultaneous" on-stage Yiddish translator for several of her monologues.
Schaechter has been commissioned to create singable Yiddish translations of operatic arias and American popular songs.
His aunt, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, was a Yiddish poet, a songwriter, and a spiritual guide to many of the Klezmer musicians in the world today.
His sister Rukhl Schaechter, current editor of the Forverts, hosts the publication’s online Yiddish cooking program Est gezunterheyt!