Dr Benjamin Oliver
Head of Music Department and Associate Professor in Composition
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Dr Benjamin Oliver is Head of Music from Autumn 2019 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 Fundamentals, a first year composition based module that introduces students to a range of ways of thinking about composition; Composition Workshop A and B, modules for second and third year students that introduce 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. 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. Recent commissions and performances include: London Sinfonietta (Sounds New 2012; ‘Alternative Visions @ The BFI’, 2014; ‘Notes to the New Government’, 2015; Sinfonietta Academy 2016; Sinfonietta Short for solo percussion, 2017); 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 (Kammer Klang, 2017; Nonclassical, 2016); and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny (Various, 2014-2017).
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 will lead a project built around Steve Reich’s Music for a Large Ensemble (1979).