Simon Atkinson: biography

Simon Atkinson (St Albans, England, UK, 1969)
• composer

Simon Atkinson has worked as a composer, performer and educator in a wide range of musical situations, but has increasingly dedicated himself to exploring composing with recorded sound. He is particularly committed to the production and promotion of acousmatic music, which celebrates the creative act of listening in situations where ambiguities in the connection of sounds to their physical source may be approached in a ‘playful’ and imaginative manner.

He began studio-based work whilst a composition student of Denis Smalley at UEA, Norwich. Between 1992 and 2000 he was based in Edinburgh, completing a PhD in Musical Composition at University of Edinburgh, where he also taught studio-based composition, and was the recipient of the Faculty of Arts, Divinity and Music Scholarship. He has worked as a guest artist-in-residence at Stiftelsen Elektro-akustik Musik i Sverige, Stockholm and IUA/Phonos Foundation, Barcelona, and received major Creative Artists Bursaries from The Scottish Arts Council and the Arts Trust of Scotland.

Recent work includes “Indriya” a collaborative installation piece with Ashok Mistry (Rangoli), Dipak Joshi (video) and John Richards (sound), commissioned by Leicester City Museums and installed June to August 2002 at the New Walk Musuem, Leicester. He has also been collaborating with public artist Samantha Haynes on a project currently being installed in a stretch of canal towpath on Leicester’s Frog Island. Simon is currently working on a collaborative electroacoustic piece with Andrew Hugill and commencing work on a piece for percussion and electronics for Mexican percussionist Alonso Mendoza.

Simon lives and works in Leicester, where he teaches at De Montfort University and is a member of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group. He is a founding member of the Scottish electroacoustic music group, invisiblEARts.