Anna Meredith (born 1978, Edinburgh) is a composer of acoustic and electronic work, musician and music educator. She is the eldest of three children in her family. Her father is a retired university teacher of journalism, and her mother works in picture restoration.[1] Her sister is the video artist Eleanor Meredith.
Meredith learned clarinet and percussion in school, and later took up composition. She initially studied at Napier University, and earned a degree in music from the University of York. She later attended the Royal College of Music, where her teachers included David Sawer and Timothy Salter.[1] As an educator, Meredith has taught drum-kit and composition at Lady Margaret School and teaches composition with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. She is a co-founder of the Camberwell Composers' Collective.[2]
One of Meredith's earliest concert hall commissions was torque, written on commission for the BBC Philharmonic and premiered at the Huddersfield Festival in 2002.[1] In 2004, she was named resident composer with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO),[3] and held the post until 2007. For the BBC SSO, her compositions include Casting (2006)[2] and Barchan[4] For The Proms, she composed froms for the 2008 Last Night of the Proms,[5][6] and the two-piano work Left Light, premiered in 2009.[7]
She has been a guest on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 as well as a judge and commentator on the BBC Young Musician of the Year. In 2009 Anna tutored Goldie on his prom commission as part of the documentary Classic Goldie.
Meredith has written axeman and flak for the London Sinfonietta.[8] Her other compositions include the opera Tarantula in Petrol Blue (2009) - libretto by Philip Ridley. The premiere run was directed by Bijan Sheibani. .[9] Meredith has also collaborated with the beatboxer Shlomo to create a concerto for beatboxer.[10] In December 2009, Meredith was named the first 'Composer in the House' of Sinfonia ViVA, and formally began in the post in January 2010. Her residency with Sinfonia ViVA is scheduled to continue into 2012.[11] Her most recent piece for Sinfonia ViVA "Four Tributes to 4am" was conducted by André de Ridder with visuals by Eleanor Meredith and featured visuals and electronics taken from a 6pm-6am walk the sisters did around Derby in the winter of 2010.[12]
In December 2010, it was announced that Meredith had been selected as one of twenty composers to participate in the New Music 20x12 project as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Meredith will compose a new work for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain to be premiered in 2012. [13]
She has performed her electronica compositions as support to These New Puritans and alongside Seb Rochford and James Blake (musician) at the Southbank Centre.