Benjamin Safran
Providence, RI 02909
(781) 375-7535
[email protected]
EDUCATION
2019: Ph.D. Music, Temple University
Dissertation: “Sounding Strategy: Composers’ Uses of Social Justice and Political Themes within Contemporary Classical Concert Music. Committee: Shana Goldin-Perschbacher, Michael Klein, Noriko Manabe, Maurice Wright
2015: M.Mus. Composition, Temple University, 2015
2013: B.A. (with honors) Music, Haverford College (with minors in education and urban studies)
EMPLOYMENT
2022—present: Academic Programs Coordinator, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown University
2019—2021: Adjunct Instructor and Artist in Residence, Temple University
2014—2018: Teaching Assistant and Graduate Student Instructor, Temple University
2011—2013: Teaching Assistant, Haverford College
ARTICLES
2021. “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People.” Journal of the Society for American Music
2020. “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs.” Yale Journal of Music and Religion 5, no. 2
NATIONAL CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
American Musicological Society National Meeting, Boston, “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs,” October 2019
Music and the Moving Image Conference, New York, “‘Alt-Classical’ Music, Sense of Place, and Environmental Activism in Ludovico Einaudi’s elegy for the arctic,” May 2019
International Association for the Study of Popular Music U.S. Meeting, New Orleans, “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs,” March 2019
Music and the Moving Image, New York, “‘A Kinder World than Ours’: Music and Narrative in Steven Universe,” May 2018
Feminist Theory and Music, San Francisco, “Narrative, Music and ‘Camp’ in the Queerness of Steven Universe,” July 2017
Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, Kalamazoo MI, “Genocide in a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” March 2017
REGIONAL AND GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Musical Responses to Climate Change Conference, “‘Art Music’ as Nonviolent Direct Action for Environmental Justice,” September 2021
UT Austin Graduate Music Conference, “Classical Music and the Paradox of Repression in Contemporary Social Movements of the United States,” April 2019
College Music Society Northeast Meeting, Millersville, PA, “‘Nothing is Too Broken’: Serving a Community with New Music,” March 2019
Columbia Music Student Conference, New York, “Classical Music and the Paradox of Repression in Contemporary Social Movements of the United States,” March 2019
American Musicological Society Joint Allegheny, Capital, and Mid-Atlantic Meeting, Newark, DE, “‘Alt-Classical’ Music and Environmentalism in Ludovico Einaudi’s elegy for the arctic,” October 2018
Yale Graduate Music Symposium, New Haven, “‘A Kinder World than Ours’: Music, Narrative and ‘Camp’ in Steven Universe,” March 2018
American Musicological Society New England Meeting, Chestnut Hill MA, “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People,” February 2018
Society of Composers Student National Conference, Muncie IN, “Genocide in a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” November 2016
VU Symposium on Electronic, Experimental, and Improvised Music, Park City UT, Composer presentation on PRT, July 2016
OTHER PRESENTATIONS
Invited talk, Sounds of Philadelphia class, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, December 2020
Invited talk, Haverford College Library Alumni Lecture Series, Haverford PA, February 2020
Invited talk, Current Topics in Musicology class, Temple University, November 2019
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Serving the City with Music: Power Local Green Jobs and Symphony for a Broken Orchestra,” February 2019
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal Lokumbe’s One Land, One River, One People,” February 2018
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Genocide and a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” October 2016
Invited talk, Sustainable Environments class, Temple University, “Nonviolent Direct Action and Music in Power Local Green Jobs,” April 2018
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Interdisciplinary approaches to studying music and social justice, hermeneutics, protest music, pedagogy, identity studies in music, music in childhood and youth culture, music in media, ecomusicology, 20th and 21st century concert music.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Temple University (2014—2021)
Instructor of Record:
Music in History (writing intensive): designed and taught a writing-intensive music history seminar with a focus on music in environmental activism.
Sounds of Philadelphia: created new syllabus and taught a race/diversity general education class on musical traditions, sound studies, and critical race theory as pertaining to current events in the City of Philadelphia
Music Theory for Non-Majors: designed syllabus and taught classes (four sections total) with mix of students including those with no musical background, those had taken AP Music Theory in high school, and those who were music majors taking the course as remediation
Orchestration: upper-level undergraduate seminar to support students’ writing for orchestral instruments and thinking critically about the contemporary symphony orchestra
Exploring Music (online asynchronous): a general education class, primarily a Western classical music sequence, for students enrolled in online degree programs.
World Musics and Cultures (online asynchronous): general education class focused on vernacular music traditions in different geographic regions.
Composition Seminar: designed syllabus and taught an interdisciplinary seminar in music composition including discussions of critical theory for music students who were not composition majors
Composition Private Lessons: offered weekly private instruction and mentorship to undergraduate music composition majors
Ear Training Lab Instructor:
Music Theory I, II, and III
Teaching Assistant:
Opera Masterpieces- a writing intensive music history course
Orchestration
Haverford College (2011—13)
taught not-for-credit mini-course in reading music and introductory music theory for non-majors who were participating in the Haverford-Bryn Mawr Chorale
AWARDS
2020: Art Hochner Travel Fund Award (unable to accept)
2018—2019: Temple University Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2018: Richard M. Duris Scholarship for Excellence in Classical Music
2018: Temple University Graduate Student Association Solidarity Grant recipient for Steven Universe paper presentations
2017: Dolce Suono Ensemble Steven Stucky Young Composers Competition winner for Autumnal Encore
COMMISSIONED COMPOSITIONS
2016 Dancing Figures commissioned by world-championship ice dancer Brooke Frieling
2015 Undiscarded commissioned by Kaleid Theatre Company, Philadelphia
2012 Dubliners commissioned by Commonwealth School Orchestra, Boston
RECENT PERFORMANCES OF COMPOSITIONS
2021: Fantasy Suite, Ben Safran, clarinetist, virtual
2020: PRT, Earth Day Art Model Festival, virtual
2019: Unstuck, Juliette Kang and Paul Roby, violinists, Kirsten Johnson, violist, Yumi Kendall, cellist, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia
2019: Gem, Temple Composers’ Orchestra, Temple Performing Arts Center, Philadelphia
2018: Action Piece #3, PECO Building, Philadelphia
2018: Dream Music, Insomnia Sounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Autumnal Encore, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Gould Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Undiscarded Suite, Temple Composers’ Orchestra, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Dancing Figures, Class of 1921 Skating Rink, Philadelphia
2017: Back and Forth, Samuel Nebyu, violinist, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2016: Abyss, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2016: PRT, VU Symposium, Park City, UT
2016: Different Directions, Temple University Youth Chamber Orchestra, Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia
2015: Undiscarded, Kaleid Theatre Company, Luna Theater, Philadelphia
2015: PRT, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Other Parts, Temple New Music Ensemble, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Filmstudie, Amphibian Concert Series, Roerich Museum, New York
2015: Filmstudie, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Summer Trio, Network for New Music, Temple Performing Arts Center, Philadelphia
SELECTED SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY
Co-clerk of board of directors of activist group Earth Quaker Action Team (2019—present)
Writer for Broad Street Review (2018—2020)
Technical support for Society for American Music annual meeting (2020)
Student assistant and program committee member for Temple Theory and Musicology Society graduate conference (2018—2019)
Student assistant for “Beyond the Notes” concert series, writing blog posts and organizing concerts at Paley Library at Temple University (2018)
Section leader for Symphony for a Broken Orchestra project, leading rehearsal, organizing, and performing in community music initiative (2017)
Volunteer with Philadelphia Childcare Collective, providing free childcare for social justice organizations (2016—2020)
Music Studies department representative and elections committee member for the university graduate student association (2014—2018)
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Musicological Society
Broadcast Music, Inc.
Society for American Music
Providence, RI 02909
(781) 375-7535
[email protected]
EDUCATION
2019: Ph.D. Music, Temple University
Dissertation: “Sounding Strategy: Composers’ Uses of Social Justice and Political Themes within Contemporary Classical Concert Music. Committee: Shana Goldin-Perschbacher, Michael Klein, Noriko Manabe, Maurice Wright
2015: M.Mus. Composition, Temple University, 2015
2013: B.A. (with honors) Music, Haverford College (with minors in education and urban studies)
EMPLOYMENT
2022—present: Academic Programs Coordinator, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown University
2019—2021: Adjunct Instructor and Artist in Residence, Temple University
2014—2018: Teaching Assistant and Graduate Student Instructor, Temple University
2011—2013: Teaching Assistant, Haverford College
ARTICLES
2021. “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People.” Journal of the Society for American Music
2020. “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs.” Yale Journal of Music and Religion 5, no. 2
NATIONAL CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
American Musicological Society National Meeting, Boston, “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs,” October 2019
Music and the Moving Image Conference, New York, “‘Alt-Classical’ Music, Sense of Place, and Environmental Activism in Ludovico Einaudi’s elegy for the arctic,” May 2019
International Association for the Study of Popular Music U.S. Meeting, New Orleans, “‘A Gentle, Angry People’: Music in a Quaker Nonviolent Direct-Action Campaign to Power Local Green Jobs,” March 2019
Music and the Moving Image, New York, “‘A Kinder World than Ours’: Music and Narrative in Steven Universe,” May 2018
Feminist Theory and Music, San Francisco, “Narrative, Music and ‘Camp’ in the Queerness of Steven Universe,” July 2017
Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, Kalamazoo MI, “Genocide in a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” March 2017
REGIONAL AND GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Musical Responses to Climate Change Conference, “‘Art Music’ as Nonviolent Direct Action for Environmental Justice,” September 2021
UT Austin Graduate Music Conference, “Classical Music and the Paradox of Repression in Contemporary Social Movements of the United States,” April 2019
College Music Society Northeast Meeting, Millersville, PA, “‘Nothing is Too Broken’: Serving a Community with New Music,” March 2019
Columbia Music Student Conference, New York, “Classical Music and the Paradox of Repression in Contemporary Social Movements of the United States,” March 2019
American Musicological Society Joint Allegheny, Capital, and Mid-Atlantic Meeting, Newark, DE, “‘Alt-Classical’ Music and Environmentalism in Ludovico Einaudi’s elegy for the arctic,” October 2018
Yale Graduate Music Symposium, New Haven, “‘A Kinder World than Ours’: Music, Narrative and ‘Camp’ in Steven Universe,” March 2018
American Musicological Society New England Meeting, Chestnut Hill MA, “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People,” February 2018
Society of Composers Student National Conference, Muncie IN, “Genocide in a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” November 2016
VU Symposium on Electronic, Experimental, and Improvised Music, Park City UT, Composer presentation on PRT, July 2016
OTHER PRESENTATIONS
Invited talk, Sounds of Philadelphia class, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, December 2020
Invited talk, Haverford College Library Alumni Lecture Series, Haverford PA, February 2020
Invited talk, Current Topics in Musicology class, Temple University, November 2019
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Serving the City with Music: Power Local Green Jobs and Symphony for a Broken Orchestra,” February 2019
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Speaking Truth to Power in Hannibal Lokumbe’s One Land, One River, One People,” February 2018
Temple University Music Studies Colloquium, “Genocide and a Piano Trio: Interpreting Laura Kaminsky’s Vukovar Trio,” October 2016
Invited talk, Sustainable Environments class, Temple University, “Nonviolent Direct Action and Music in Power Local Green Jobs,” April 2018
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Interdisciplinary approaches to studying music and social justice, hermeneutics, protest music, pedagogy, identity studies in music, music in childhood and youth culture, music in media, ecomusicology, 20th and 21st century concert music.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Temple University (2014—2021)
Instructor of Record:
Music in History (writing intensive): designed and taught a writing-intensive music history seminar with a focus on music in environmental activism.
Sounds of Philadelphia: created new syllabus and taught a race/diversity general education class on musical traditions, sound studies, and critical race theory as pertaining to current events in the City of Philadelphia
Music Theory for Non-Majors: designed syllabus and taught classes (four sections total) with mix of students including those with no musical background, those had taken AP Music Theory in high school, and those who were music majors taking the course as remediation
Orchestration: upper-level undergraduate seminar to support students’ writing for orchestral instruments and thinking critically about the contemporary symphony orchestra
Exploring Music (online asynchronous): a general education class, primarily a Western classical music sequence, for students enrolled in online degree programs.
World Musics and Cultures (online asynchronous): general education class focused on vernacular music traditions in different geographic regions.
Composition Seminar: designed syllabus and taught an interdisciplinary seminar in music composition including discussions of critical theory for music students who were not composition majors
Composition Private Lessons: offered weekly private instruction and mentorship to undergraduate music composition majors
Ear Training Lab Instructor:
Music Theory I, II, and III
Teaching Assistant:
Opera Masterpieces- a writing intensive music history course
Orchestration
Haverford College (2011—13)
taught not-for-credit mini-course in reading music and introductory music theory for non-majors who were participating in the Haverford-Bryn Mawr Chorale
AWARDS
2020: Art Hochner Travel Fund Award (unable to accept)
2018—2019: Temple University Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2018: Richard M. Duris Scholarship for Excellence in Classical Music
2018: Temple University Graduate Student Association Solidarity Grant recipient for Steven Universe paper presentations
2017: Dolce Suono Ensemble Steven Stucky Young Composers Competition winner for Autumnal Encore
COMMISSIONED COMPOSITIONS
2016 Dancing Figures commissioned by world-championship ice dancer Brooke Frieling
2015 Undiscarded commissioned by Kaleid Theatre Company, Philadelphia
2012 Dubliners commissioned by Commonwealth School Orchestra, Boston
RECENT PERFORMANCES OF COMPOSITIONS
2021: Fantasy Suite, Ben Safran, clarinetist, virtual
2020: PRT, Earth Day Art Model Festival, virtual
2019: Unstuck, Juliette Kang and Paul Roby, violinists, Kirsten Johnson, violist, Yumi Kendall, cellist, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia
2019: Gem, Temple Composers’ Orchestra, Temple Performing Arts Center, Philadelphia
2018: Action Piece #3, PECO Building, Philadelphia
2018: Dream Music, Insomnia Sounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Autumnal Encore, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Gould Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Undiscarded Suite, Temple Composers’ Orchestra, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2017: Dancing Figures, Class of 1921 Skating Rink, Philadelphia
2017: Back and Forth, Samuel Nebyu, violinist, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2016: Abyss, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2016: PRT, VU Symposium, Park City, UT
2016: Different Directions, Temple University Youth Chamber Orchestra, Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia
2015: Undiscarded, Kaleid Theatre Company, Luna Theater, Philadelphia
2015: PRT, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Other Parts, Temple New Music Ensemble, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Filmstudie, Amphibian Concert Series, Roerich Museum, New York
2015: Filmstudie, Cybersounds, Rock Hall, Philadelphia
2015: Summer Trio, Network for New Music, Temple Performing Arts Center, Philadelphia
SELECTED SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY
Co-clerk of board of directors of activist group Earth Quaker Action Team (2019—present)
Writer for Broad Street Review (2018—2020)
Technical support for Society for American Music annual meeting (2020)
Student assistant and program committee member for Temple Theory and Musicology Society graduate conference (2018—2019)
Student assistant for “Beyond the Notes” concert series, writing blog posts and organizing concerts at Paley Library at Temple University (2018)
Section leader for Symphony for a Broken Orchestra project, leading rehearsal, organizing, and performing in community music initiative (2017)
Volunteer with Philadelphia Childcare Collective, providing free childcare for social justice organizations (2016—2020)
Music Studies department representative and elections committee member for the university graduate student association (2014—2018)
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
American Musicological Society
Broadcast Music, Inc.
Society for American Music