Anna Meredith, the Scottish composer, MBE, who made her debut in front of 40 million people at the last night of the proms. That was in 2008. Then her recording debut swept up Scottish Album of the Year, and now she’s renowned as much for her film scores on the one hand, as for her acoustic composing on the other. The most confident and assured voice in British contemporary music, she’s been called. Or as NPR put it, “Music for the head, the heart, the ass and the feet”. I love the physicality of her music and her fantastic sense of playfulness.
Born in London in 1978, her family moved to Scotland when she was two and she grew up playing Scottish fiddle before on to clarinet and drums at high school, writing her first piece for the electric keyboard with the quirk that the performer was required to change sounds on the buttons throughout using their nose. More quirky pieces followed. But it wasn’t until she was at the University of York that she ever began thinking about music as a career; to her, it was just fun, and still was when she was made a junior fellow at the Royal College of Music when she was just 24, composer in residence with the BBC Scottish symphony almost immediately after. Commissions started to pour in, including music for Hong Kong park benches, to shopping center elevators, to a sarabande for the resurfacing machine at the ice rink at Somerset House.
Before - suddenly - she changed gears. Released her debut album Varmint in 2016, that’s the one that won classical album and Pitchfork’s coveted best new music, and has been touring the world with her band ever since, making her one unique brand of music – big and bold, loud and fun.
"I think there's definitely a place for playfulness” she says. “Taking yourself too seriously is a bit of a crime".
Anna Meredith (1978 –)
MUSIC: Blackfriars
Anna Meredith, synthesizer
Ligeti Quartet
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
