Anna Meredith

Anna Howard Meredith (born 12 January 1978) is a Scottish composer and performer of electronic and acoustic music. She is a former composer-in-residence with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and former PRS/RPS Composer in the House with Sinfonia ViVA.

In 2016, Meredith released her debut studio album, Varmints, to widespread critical acclaim. An electronica-based release, the album won the 2016 Scottish Album of the Year Award.

Career Meredith was born in Tufnell Park, north London, England, and moved to South Queensferry, Scotland, at the age of two. She read for a degree in music at the University of York, where she was awarded first-class honours, and gained her master's degree from the Royal College of Music. She has since written another BBC Prom commission, her first opera (Tarantula in Petrol Blue – with libretto by Philip Ridley) and collaborated with the beatboxer Shlomo, writing the Concerto for Beatboxer and Orchestra. and won the 2010 Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers.

Meredith has moved into electronic music, and a solo set at La Carrière de Normandoux. In 2012 Meredith released her debut EP Black Prince Fury, on Moshi Moshi Records, which a reviewer compared favourably to the work of the avant-garde jazz composer Moondog. In August 2013, Moshi Moshi Records and VF Editions released Meredith's second EP, Jet Black Raider. In an interview with Pitchfork, Meredith noted that her second EP featured "clarinets, singing, glocks, drums, lots of cello," unlike Black Prince Fury, which was entirely synthesised.

She featured in the First Night of the 2018 Proms with a new collaboration, Five Telegrams, with 59 Productions. Meredith produced the soundtrack for the 2018 film Eighth Grade. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to music. Meredith and her band at Fabric, London, on 10 November 2021, performing in support of the album Fibs. From left to right: Meredith (keys, electronics, percussion, clarinet), Tom Kelly (tuba), Sam Wilson (drums), Jack Ross (electric guitar) and Maddie Cutter (cello). Her second studio album, Fibs, was released on 25 October 2019. The album was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize 2020. With her band, she toured in support of the album in 2021.

Discography Studio albums Varmints (2016) Anno (2018) Fibs (2019) Bumps Per Minute: 18 Studies for Dodgems (2021) Nuc (2023), with the Ligeti Quartet

EPs Black Prince Fury (2012) Jet Black Raider (2013)

Soundtracks Eighth Grade (2018) Living With Yourself (2019) The End We Start From (2023) Tuesday (2023)