Monty Adkins

Monty Adkins (b. 29 Mar 1972) is a British experimental electronic composer, performer, educator and researcher. Adkins is a Professor of Experimental Electronic Music and Dean of the Graduate School at the University Of Huddersfield. He specializes in electroacoustic and acousmatic music, sonic art and installations, and sound spatialization. Born in Leamington, UK, Mathew "Monty" Adkins initially studied music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, receiving his MA degree with Honors in 1993. He then studied electronic music & analysis with Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham, where Adkins also performed with BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre) from 1993 to '95. In 1994, Mathew Adkins first gained international recognition with his electroacoustic works Melt and Clothed in the Soft Horizon. Both received several prestigious awards, including Stockholm Electronic Arts Award in Sweden, the Résidence Prize (Bourges, France), and the Grand Prix of Musica Nova in Prague, Czech Republic. (These and other electroacoustic works, composed between 1994 and 2000, came out on 344484 compilation). From 1995 till '97, Adkins served as the Sonic Arts Network director. He further continued his education at the University Of East Anglia, under the guidance of Simon Waters, graduating with Ph.D. in Electroacoustic Music in Jan 1998. Since then, Adkins concentrated more on acousmatic concert music and cross-disciplinary, multimedia works. Some of his notable compositions from the era include Neurotransmission (1998), an hour-long acousmatic dance score written for Wayne McGregor (2), Still Time (2001) for the flutist Alejandro Escuer, Symbiont, a 2002 collaboration with Miles Chalcraft, and Nights Bright Daies (2003) devised for the Ictus (2) quartet. Monty Adkins also collaborated extensively with composer Paulina Sundin and recorder player Terri Hron. Adkins had worked at many European electronic music studios, including Elektronmusikstudion (Stockholm, Sweden), INA-GRM and Studios IRCAM (Paris, France), Césaré (Reims, France), and EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO des SWR (Freiburg, Germany). Many of the composer's works were performed and commissioned by leading international festivals and institutions: BBC Radio 3, ZKM, Sonic Arts Network, Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique in Bourges, the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, and many others. In 2006, after Adkins briefly stayed in New Zealand, his compositional approach changed significantly. The artist changed his name to "Monty" for music and academic careers. His music became much more minimalistic and ambient-like, with slowly evolving soundscapes instigating an immersive listening experience. Monty Adkins often collaborated with instrumentalists, such as bassist Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and clarinet players Jonathan Sage (2) and Heather Roche. In 2021, Adkins started a new side-project, Skrika, focused on dark ambient. His debut album Fifth Nature, mastered by Erdem Helvacioğlu, came out on Simon Heath's label Cryo Chamber, which offers 24-bit digital releases.