B E N J A M I N D W Y E R composer | guitarist | writer | educator
Selected Compositions & Improvisation Projects
Twelve Études
solo guitar 45' (2008)
Composed over a ten-year period, Twelve Études explore, through what Dwyer describes as 'hidden pedagogy', the challenges that 20th- and 21-st century music presents to the modern guitarist technically and interpretatively. They were described by guitarist Fabio Zanon as the ‘summation of an entire guitar epoch’. Below left is a video of the full score of the Twelve Études with a complete recording by Benjamin Dwyer (released on Gamelan Records in 2008). Below right is a video of Dwyer performing Étude No. 6 'African Print' from 2019.
Umbilical
Baroque violin, double bass, harpsichord, tape and Butoh dancer 55' (2011)
Umbilical was written for Barry Guy, Maya Homburger, David Adams, and Butoh dancer Sayoko Onishi. Based on traditional Japanese and ancient Greek music, it is a radical, textless version of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus that focuses on Jocasta’s experiences of sexual desire and the consequent burden of knowledge that she has transgressed a fundmental societal taboo by making a lover of her son; an action that culminates in her tragic fate. Umbilical is available on Diatribe Records.
The video shows a rehearsal of movement 3: 'Exorkismos'
what is the word (triptych with interludes)
violin, guitar, double bass & narrator 32' (2019)
A response to the words of Samuel Beckett. A triptych based on three texts: Neither; Worstward Ho (excerpt); and What is the word (Beckett's last poem).
This video shows an excerpt from a live performance at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, with Barry Guy (double bass), Maya Homburger (violin), Conor Lovett (Theatre Gare St Lazare Ireland, narrator) and Benjamin Dwyer (guitar) on 17 December 2019.
KnowingUnknowing
improvised triptych for dance and amplified guitar/prepared & bowed guitar (Helen Kindred dancer, Benjamin Dwyer guitar, prepared guitar, bowed guitar) c. 30' (2016)
Inspired by various texts by Samuel Beckett, Ted Hughes and Martin Heidegger, KnowingUnknowing explores the liminal spaces between the body and the zones it occupies, the conscious and the unconscious, movement and stillness, sound and silence, sight and gesture. KnowingUnknowing also appears as an experimental improvised film by Pete Gomes, which appears on a new CD/DVD entitled KnowingUnkowing released on Farpoint Recordings in 2019. The videos below feature an introduction to KnowingUnknowing by Benjamin Dwyer outlining some of the original concepts and influences behind the work, and an excerpt from the released film (Farpoint Recordings, 2019).
HAG (from SacrumProfanum)
amplified flute and bowed guitar, 13’ (2018)
HAG is a sonic interrogation of identity and power exploring historic and contemporary attempts by various power structures to control the untamed power of the female body. In HAG, Dwyer situates the enigmatic pre-Christian sheela-na-gigs (stone carvings of female figures that provocatively expose enlarged vulvas) as enduring cultural icons, which have been subjugated and projected upon by the religious, gender, sexual, and socio-political contexts of the passing ages, sometimes literally mutilated and defiled before finally being given the name ‘sheela-na-gig’, and with it, a degenerated and circumscribed identity.
Below left is a video of the premiere of HAG at the New Music from Ireland concert in Chapter Arts Cardiff with Emma Coulthard and Benjamin Dwyer on 17 March 2019. Below right is a short film on some of the fieldwork carried out by Dwyer while researching for the SacrumProfanum project to which HAG and Gierador (below) belong.
Umwelt V
improvisation for solo guitar, 22' (2020)
This is a film of a solo free improvisation that was recorded on 3 August 2020 in a studio in Dublin by filmmaker Lucía Dwyer. This improvisation makes use of prepared guitar techniques devised by Dwyer and features his use of a bow and other techniques. By deconstructing the instrument, new, hidden instruments have been liberated; new compositional possibilities have been unleashed.
Umwelt V is part part of Dwyer's Umwelten ('environments') series, which emerged out of his responses to the psychological, emotional and physical effects the Covid-19 lockdowns. These pieces also engage with the proposition of Umwelt Theory at the core of current biosemiotics, which explores the latitudes and limits of human consciousness and perception .
Gierador (from SacrumProfanum)
film, 20’ (2015)
A collaboration between Benjamin Dwyer and American filmmaker Dylan Griffith, Gierador is a visual and sonic interrogation of identity and power exploring historic and contemporary attempts by various power structures to control the untamed power of the female body. In Gierador, Griffith and Dwyer situate the enigmatic pre-Christian sheela-na-gigs (stone carvings of female figures that provocatively expose enlarged vulvas) as enduring cultural icons, which have been subjugated and projected upon by the religious, gender, sexual, cultural and political contexts of the passing ages, sometimes literally mutilated and defiled before finally being given the name ‘sheela-na-gig’, and with it, a degenerated and circumscribed identity.
Gierador premiered at the Belfast Book Festival in 2015 at the Crescent Arts Centre.
still from Gierador
Sobre los Ángeles
soprano & guitar (prepared guitar) 30' (2017)
This is a song cycle based on texts by the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti (1902-1999) from his collection of the same title. The work was premiered at the Barrow River Festival on 22 March 2017 with soprano Sylvia O'Brien.
with Sylvia O'Brien
photo: Brian Kavanagh
Scenes from Crow
amplified mixed ensemble, soprano, tape 45' (2009)
Written for the VOX21 ensemble, Scenes from Crow is an sonic re-imagining of Ted Hughes’s controversial Crow: From the Life and Songs of Crow. Drawing upon the shamanistic cultures of first-nation peoples and the Inuit, the music attempts to capture the poetry's ritualistic, surreal and apocalyptic visions. It is available on Diatribe Records.
"An intense, deeply personal, often enigmatic response to the poems..."
The Irish Times
image: Johannes Heisig
Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Orchestra
25' (2007)
Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Orchestra was commissioned by the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and premiered by the distinguished Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon.
with Fabio Zanon
Complete Catalogue
Five Sicilian Preludes
solo guitar (25') 2020
Hommage à Ligeti
solo guitar (15') 2020
Umwelten V
solo guitar improvisation (22') 2020
Umwelten I-IV
bass clarinet & accordion (18') 2020
five disjecta (after Beckett)
solo guitar (12') 2019
what is the word (triptych with interludes)
guitar (prepared guitar), violin, double bass and narrator (35')
(text: Samuel Beckett) 2019
six residua (after Beckett)
solo violin (13') 2019
HAG
amplified flute and bowed guitar (10') 2018
Tombeau sur la mort de Claude Debussy
guitar (6') 2018
Sobre los Ángeles
soprano and guitar, prepared guitar (one player)
(text: Rafael Alberti)
30' (2017)
KnowingUnknowing
amplified guitar, prepared guitar (one player) and dancer
(improvised composition and choreography)
30' (2016)
Nocturnal, after Benjamin Britten
piano trio
23' (2015)
Gierador
video installation (with film maker Dylan Griffith)
20' (2015)
jouissance…
shakuhachi
13' (2013)
Étude
Piano
6’ (2013)
imagines obesae et aspectui ingratae
viola
20' (2013)
Umbilical
Baroque violin, double bass, harpsichord, tape
(optional Butoh dancer)
55' (2011)
Scenes from Crow
amplified mixed ensemble, soprano, tape
45' (2009)
Dos estudios avanzados
guitar
8' (2008, 2012)
Eight Simple Studies
guitar
8' (2008, 2012)
Twelve Studies
guitar
8' (2008, 2012)
Soneto del Amor Oscuro
flute (doubling alto and sliding flutes), percussion
15' (1996, 2011)
Crow
amplified flute (with sliding head-joint), tape
13' (version 2010)
In Memoriam Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
3222 422, timpani, 3 percussion, harp, piano, celeste, strings
16' (2009)
Four Japanese Prints
amplified bass flute, alto flute, flute, piccolo (one player), amplified piano
10' (2009)
Sueños Lentos (Sloe Dreams) [Portrait]
piano
4' (2009)
Twelve Études for Guitar
guitar
40' (2008)
Concerto No. 1 for Guitar and Strings
guitar and strings
18' (1998, 2008)
Passacaille
Baroque violin, harpsichord
7' (2007)
Night Words
accordion, bass clarinet
11' (2007)
Homenaje a Maurice Ohana
piano
12' (1997, 2006)
Piano Trio II
violin, piano, cello
17' (2007)
Al-Andalus
flute (doubling bass flute), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), accordion, violin, cello, percussion
14' (2005)
Tango para dos
2 guitars
5' (2005)
Líneas
violin, 8-string guitar
5' (2005)
Movimientos I-IV
violin, piano
20' (2007)
Apuntes sin títulos I-IV
guitar
10' (2005)
Voces Críticas
guitar
16' (2004)
Afterjoyce I
flute, percussion, live electronics
5' (2004)
Omeros
4 guitars (amplified)
12' (1994, 2004)
Guitar Quintet
guitar, string quartet
18' (2003)
Canción y Tango
for guitar
8' (1995, 2003)
Canción y Tango
for flute, guitar
8' (1995, 2003)
Canción y Tango
for soprano saxophone, guitar
8' (1995, 2003)
Apuntes
piano
11' (2002)
Crow’s Vanity
amplified cello, tape
8' (2000)
Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra: Rajas, Sattva, Tamas
percussion solo, 2222 2210, timpani, 3 percussion, harp, piano, strings
23' (2000)
Crow
amplified flute (doubling piccolo), tape
13' (1999)
Crow
amplified tenor recorder, tape
13' (1999)
Piano Trio I: Quasi una fantasia
violin, cello, piano
13' (1998)
Quasi una fantasia
soprano saxophone, violin, piano
13' (1998)
Quasi una fantasia
clarinet, violin, piano
13' (1998)
Quasi una fantasia
piano
12' (1997, rev. 2006)
Parallaxis
soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
8' (1996)
Soneto del Amor Oscuro
oboe, percussion
15' (1995)
Song for Her (Canción para Ella)
flute, guitar
3' (1995)
Song for Her (Canción para Ella)
soprano saxophone, guitar
3' (1995)
Song for Her (Canción para Ella)
2 guitars
3' (1995)
Song for Her (Canción para Ella)
guitar
3' (1995)
In Memoriam
ssaa
4' (1995)
Tiento
soprano saxophone, piano
13' (1994)
Sonata for Tenor Recorder and Guitar
tenor recorder, guitar
13' (1994, 1997)
Sonata for Flute and Guitar
flute, guitar
13' (1994, 1997)
Sonata for Oboe and Guitar
oboe, guitar
13' (1994)
Two Mahon Songs
mezzo, cello
7' (1994, 1995)
Two Mahon Songs
high voice, cello
7' (1994, 1995)
Prakriti
alto saxophone
15' (1993, 1995)