Dr Mira Benjamin

Overview

Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist specialising in 20th and 21st century experimental music. Mira's research explores frameworks of embodiment in the performance of experimental music. She is interested in how the human body holds and experiences knowledge, and how these ways of knowing can support performers in both professional and research contexts. 

Mira's varied career has spanned many genres of musical practice, including work with electronics, dance, improvisation, film, theatre, and commercial music. She is an active member of the London-based ensembles, Apartment House and Plus Minus, with whom she performs internationally. Her ongoing collaboration with the Sheffield-based record lable Another Timbre has resulted in a discography of over 50 titles. Her practice of collaboration with composers has seen the world premieres of over 250 new works. As a teacher, she has taught performance at international festivals throughout North America and Europe. Prior to joining City, she taught at Goldsmiths, and previously at Huddersfield, Leeds and Concordia Universities. 

After growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mira studied performance at McGill University in Montreal, earning a BMus (2008) and Artist Diploma (2010). She performed as a member of the Bozzini Quartet in Montreal, before relocating to the UK in 2014. Her PhD as Duncan Druce Scholar in Music Performance the University of Huddersfield (2019) explored a relational epistemology of musical pitch via various ways of practising, modelling, representing, and ultimately knowing pitch space. Mira was the recipient of the 2016 Virginia Parker Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts—awarded annually to a Canadian musician in recognition of a valuable contribution to artistic life in Canada and internationally.

 

Qualifications

• SFHEA, Advance HE, United Kingdom, 2024
• PhD, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, 2019
• Artist Diploma, McGill University, Canada, 2010
• BMus, McGill University, Canada, 2008

Employment

• Lecturer in Music, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2024 - present
• Lecturer in Music Performance, Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom, September 2018 - December 2024

Publications by category