Upcoming presentations and lectures by Benjamin Dwyer

Composer/musician/academic Benjamin Dwyer will be giving a number of lectures and seminars in the UK and Ireland over the month.

Dwyer - who is currently Professor of Music at Middlesex University's School of Media and Performing Arts - has an established reputation as an academic and writer with a unique perspective born from his experience as a performer, composer and curator. The first event is a joint seminar with violist Garth Knox on the topic of 'Transformational Ostinati in the Sonata for Solo Viola by Gyorgy Ligeti', which follows from the publication of a chapter of the same title in a recent book on Ligeti's music. This seminar takes place at Middlesex University London at 6pm on 17 April.

On 24 and 25 April, Dwyer will curate in the Contemporary Music Centre's Musical Tales - One City One Book taking place in libraries across Dublin. The event explores James Plunkett's book Strumpet City, and the influence of Dublin City on Irish composers, including John Buckley, Hamilton Harty, Michael Holohan, Donal Sarsfield and Vincent Kennedy.

These events are followed by a number of special guest lectures in Dublin: the first is in the Royal Irish Academy of Music on 1 May, on 'Transcendance as a System: Britten's Reverse Variation Form', and the second is a joint presentation with Dr. John Buckley at NUI Maynooth on 'Sonic Symbiosis: The Relationship Between Composer and Musicologist' on 3 May. Dwyer will give a second talk at NUI Maynooth's Seminar on Composition as Research, called 'Grammars of Creation? – Challenges in Articulating and Evaluating Composition as Research'.

Also in May, Benjamin Dwyer will take part in the Creative Connexions festival, celebrating an Irish and Catalan Cultural Exchange with concerts in Dublin and Barcelona on 23 – 26 May. The festival includes a concert titled 'The Cutting Edge', with a conversation between featured composers Dwyer and Ramon Humet  (further information here).