Dr Alexis Bennett
Alexis researches audiovisual media, and has parallel interests in folk and early music.
Staff details
Alexis Bennett is Lecturer in Music in the Department of Music at Goldsmiths, and a visiting supervisor at the University of Cambridge.
He completed his doctoral research at Goldsmiths after studying at the University of Edinburgh, Royal College of Music, and Guildhall School.
He was 2016-17 Edison Fellow at the British Library Sound Archive.
As a composer he works primarily with poets, filmmakers, and animators, and his music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Channel 4, TCM, and at major film festivals throughout the world, including Cannes, London, and Edinburgh. His opera The Electrictionary premiered at Kings Place in August 2015 as part of the Tête à Tête festival.
His collaboration with the poet Katrina Porteous debuted at Dartington Music Summer School & Festival in 2018, and he also works regularly with the London-based poets Mick Delap and Gloria Sanders.
He has performed widely with early music ensembles such as Florilegium, Dufay Collective, and London Early Opera.
Alexis is also active on the folk scene as a ceilidh caller and fiddler, and is a member of the London-based old-time band The Croshaw Family.
He has taught folk music performance at Dartington Music Summer School in collaboration with Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, Emily Portman, the Askew Sisters, and Harbottle & Jonas.
Alexis has performed live on In Tune (BBC Radio 3), The Early Music Show (BBC Radio 3), Front Row (BBC Radio 4), and Classic FM.
He can been seen and heard in major feature films and TV series, including The Favourite (2018), Emma (2020), The Great (2020), Mrs Wilson (2018), and has coached actors in their on-screen musical performance roles for titles including Mary Queen of Scots (2018).
He is reviews editor of Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, published by Liverpool University Press, and he is on the editorial board of Facta Universitatis: Visual Arts and Music.
Alexis has published in Popular Music (Cambridge University Press), Music, Sound, and the Moving Image (Liverpool University Press) and Journal of Film Music (Equinox).
Teaching
Alexis Bennett teaches on Music in Film, Creative Research Project, Composition, Discovering Music, Media Composition (all undergraduate), Performance & Analysis (foundation), and also Composition for Moving Image Media, and Sources and Resources (Masters).