Monty Adkins is a composer, performer and lecturer in electroacoustic music

Electroacoustic music

Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

.


Adkins was born in Leamington, UK, and is currently living in Huddersfield

Huddersfield

Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....

, UK. He read music at Pembroke College (Cambridge, UK) and then, in 1993, became a member of the BEAST

Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre

Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, or as it is more commonly known, BEAST, is a sound diffusion system specifically designed for the performance of electroacoustic music. Created in 1982, it is a long-running project of the Electroacoustic Music Studios at the University of Birmingham under...

 (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre). He studied electronic music with Jonty Harrison

Jonty Harrison

Jonty Harrison is an electroacoustic music composer born April 27, 1952 in Scunthorpe, UK, and currently living in Birmingham, UK.Jonty Harrison is an electroacoustic music composer born April 27, 1952 in Scunthorpe, UK, and currently living in Birmingham, UK.Jonty Harrison is an electroacoustic...

 and then Simon Waters. It was at the age of 22 that he first came to international attention with the electroacoustic works Melt and Clothed in the Soft Horizon. Between them these works were awarded the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award (Sweden), the Résidence Prize (Bourges, France) and the Grand Prix of Musica Nova (Prague, Czech Republic). He has since won more than a dozen international prizes for his work, which has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe, USA, Canada, Australasia, China, and Asia. He has worked in a number of prestigious European studios, including EMS (Stockholm, Sweden), Ina-GRM and IRCAM

IRCAM

IRCAM is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris...

 (Paris, France), Césare (Reims, France), and Heinrich Strobel Studio (Freiburg, Germany).

In the early 1990s, Adkins concentrated predominantly on acousmatic concert music, electronic works for contemporary dance, multimedia works, and electroacoustic music. What he was particularly drawn to in writing such works is the collaborative process that evolves between the composer and artist/performers. The most notable of these have been Neurotransmission (1998), an hour-long acousmatic dance score written for Wayne McGregor

Wayne McGregor

Wayne McGregor CBE is a British choreographer of contemporary modern dance. His work is highly distinctive in its vocabulary of movement, for its integration of dance with film and visual art, and for his active interest and incorporation of computer technology and biological science...

 and Random Dance in 1998, Still Time (2001) for the flutist Alejandro Escuer, Symbiont (2002) a multimedia collaboration with Miles Chalcraft, and nights bright daies (2003) for the Ictus

Ictus

-Medicine:*ictus, a sudden event such as a stroke, seizure, collapse, or faint-Music and poetry:*ictus, in music and conducting, the instant when a beat occurs*ictus, in poetry, a way of indicating a stressed syllable...

 piano and percussion quartet; the latter premiered in June 2004 at the Festival Agora No 7 at IRCAM

IRCAM

IRCAM is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris...

 (Paris, France).

Following a brief period in New Zealand in 2006 his work changed significantly. Becoming more influenced by minimal electronica, oceanic glitch and microscound his work became less overtly gestural, introverted and personal. His work also began to explore extended timeframes. Although split into sections, Five Panels (2008, 46 mins) and fragile.flicker.fragment (2010, 53 mins) are essentially multipart works rather than albums with separate tracks.

Recordings

• Five Panels (Signature, Radio France, 2009)
• 60 Project (empreintes DIGITALes
  Empreintes DIGITALes
  empreintes DIGITALes is a record label founded in 1990 and based in Montreal which specialises in contemporary electroacoustic music, acousmatic and musique concrète.In 2005, empreintes DIGITALes shifted from CD to DVD-Audio.- Composers :* Mathew Adkins...
  
  , IMED 0898, 2008)
• Mondes inconnus (empreintes DIGITALes
  Empreintes DIGITALes
  empreintes DIGITALes is a record label founded in 1990 and based in Montreal which specialises in contemporary electroacoustic music, acousmatic and musique concrète.In 2005, empreintes DIGITALes shifted from CD to DVD-Audio.- Composers :* Mathew Adkins...
  
  , IMED 0679, 2006)

List of works

• 60 Project (2008)
• Aerial (2002)
• between lines (2008), cello and electronics
• Breaking (1999)
• Clothed in the Soft Horizon (1994)
• Cortex (2004–05)
• Deepfield (2000-1)
• Five Panels (2008)
• Fragile.Flicker.Fragment (2010)
• Liquid Neon (1999)
• Mapping (1995–97)
• Melt (1994)
• Neurotransmission (1998)
• Nights Bright Daies (2003), 2 pianos, 2 percussions, and electronics
• Noumena (2000), cello and electronics
• Pagan Circus (1996–97)
• Silent Red (2006), 2 dancers, 3 video projections, and tape
• Silk to Steel (2005)
• Still Time (2001), flute, and electronics
• Symbiont (2002)

External links

• His personal site