As part of the Sunderland Year of Music, the Dun Cow’s Drawing Room is thrilled to host a classical music composition masterclass with acclaimed composer Ben Lunn on Thursday, July 24th, 2025.
This is a unique opportunity for aspiring and established composers to delve into the creative process with a figure celebrated for his evocative and deeply personal compositions. Ben is a composer with northern roots, and an internationalist perspective.
‘A Radical Optimist’ – Aleksandra Line, Mūzikos Saule
‘BEN LUNN puts his beloved birthplace Sunderland on the musical map’ – Linton Stephens, BBC Radio 3
‘His work extends the palette of sounds that can be brought into contemporary classical music, redefining both modern composition and concert-hall inclusion.’ – Alan Morrison, Rhinegold.co.uk
Powerful, poignant and deeply moving, Lunn’s composition certainly represents the spirit of Disability History Month 2018 and our current struggle for justice. – Gemma Nash, Disability Arts Online
Ben Lunn has forged himself a unique position within the new music landscape. As a composer, Lunn’s music reflects the material world around him, connecting to his North-Eastern heritage or how disability impacts the world around him or his working-class upbringing. Alongside this, he has become renowned for his championship of others, which have seen him creating unique collaborations with musicians from across the globe and developing unique concert experiences and opportunities for others.
He has won accolades from the Scottish Music Awards in both 2023 and 2020 for his work with Hebrides Ensemble and Drake Music Scotland, and in 2024 was shortlisted for the RPS Awards for his concerto History Needs… composed for Nicholas McCarthy. In 2022, Ben Lunn became the first North-East composer to be selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composer Scheme which saw him paired with Music in the Round. He is currently working with Welsh Bass-Baritone, Paul Carey Jones, and the Durham Miners’ Association Brass Band on a new work to commemorate the centenary of Sunderland-born poet, William Martin.
Part of the Sunderland Music City masterclass series.
