Dr Benjamin Oliver MMus, DPhil
Head of Music Department and Associate Professor in Composition
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Dr Benjamin Oliver is Head of Music and Associate Professor in Composition at the University of Southampton.
I completed my AHRC-funded DPhil in Composition at the University of Sussex under the supervision of Sam Hayden in 2010. Following work as a postdoctoral researcher at Southampton, I began teaching at the University in 2011. I teach modules including Composition Workshop, a module for second and third year students that introduces 20th and 21st century compositional techniques and approaches, and Composition Portfolio, a third year module that includes seminars introducing further compositional methodologies, as well as one-to-one supervision and performance workshops. In the 2019-2020 academic year I led an innovative community music module in partnership with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Alongside my undergraduate teaching I also supervise a range of MMus portfolios and PhD projects.
More than fifty of my works have been performed by orchestras, ensembles, choirs and soloists. Commissions and performances include: London Sinfonietta ('Alternative Visions @ The BFI', 2014; 'Notes to the New Government', 2015; Sinfonietta Academy 2016); ensemble mise-en (Mise-en Music Festival 2014 and 2018, New York); BBC Symphony Orchestra (Sound and Music Commission, broadcast BBC Radio 3, 2013); Ensemble Paramirabo (Montreal, 2016); pianist Yshani Perinpanayagam (Various; 2013-2019); and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny (Various, 2014-2019). Upcoming projects include a work with poet Luke Wright, The Driver, for Riot Ensemble and a new large-scale theatre piece for Ensemble Paramirabo for puppeteers and ensemble, Pythagoras’ Toolkit, developed in collaboration with theatre director Rachel Warr.
Alongside my composition activities I have also worked as a conductor, arranger, electronic musician and jazz pianist, and conduct the Workers Union Ensemble. In February 2017 I directed the 'Loop Project', which featured Southampton students performing my 'Loop Concerto' alongside leading jazz musicians Ivo Neame, Jasper Høiby and Jon Scott and in January 2019 lead a project built around Steve Reich's 'Music for a Large Ensemble' (1979). In February 2020 I led a performance project led Richard Ayres' 'In the Alps' (2008) featuring leading soprano Juliet Fraser as soloist.