Benjamin Safran
Contributor
BSR Contributor Since May 7, 2019
Philadelphia-based musicologist and composer Ben Safran (they/them or he/him) researches issues of social justice, politics, and identity within classical music, and presents their scholarly and creative work at performances and academic conferences across the country.
Philadelphia-based musicologist and composer Ben Safran’s research, which they have presented at national and regional conferences across the country, includes interdisciplinary approaches to studying music and social justice, protest music, identity studies, hermeneutics, pedagogy, media studies, and ecomusicology. Ben’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States, including by Network for New Music, Dolce Suono Ensemble, Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, Calliope, Temple Composers' Orchestra, Temple University New Music Ensemble, and by titled members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Ben has been commissioned by world-championship ice skater Brooke Frieling, Philadelphia's Kaleid Theater, and Boston's Commonwealth School, and is a winner of the 2017 Dolce Suono Ensemble Steven Stucky Young Composers Award and the 2018 Richard Duris Award for excellence in classical music. A native of Massachusetts, Ben completed a Ph.D. in music studies from Temple University in May 2019, where their dissertation was on contemporary classical composers' uses of social justice and political themes in their concert music.
