Poppy Ackroyd

Poppy Ackroyd, born in London and now based in Edinburgh, works as a composer, pianist, and violinist. She performs on her instruments in standard fashion yet also employs drumsticks, e-bows, picks, and all ten fingers to pluck and scrape, generating distinctive timbres and textures from both the interior and exterior of the instruments before processing and layering the results through computer and live microphone. Though rooted in this tactile method, her compositions remain detailed, fragile, and melodic, qualities already clear on the 2012 debut Escapement and the 2014 release Feathers. The 2017 album Sketches was recorded entirely alone, whereas 2018’s Resolve incorporated contributions from Manu Delago, Jo Quail, and Mike Lesirge and later prompted the 2019 remix collection Resolve Reimagined EP; Pause, issued in 2021, likewise returned to solo methods and was followed in 2022 by the remix set Pause (Reworked) and then the four-track Pause Reimagined in 2023.

Classically trained and the daughter of visual artist Norman Ackroyd, CBE RA, she holds a master’s degree in music focused on piano performance. Deeply engaged with contemporary piano repertoire, Ackroyd serves as a permanent member of Hidden Orchestra and has worked with dancers, choreographers, actors, poets, filmmakers, and videographers. Her first album, Escapement, appeared on Denovali in late 2012; a DVD edition featuring visuals by Bristol-based audio-visual artist Lumen followed in September 2014, after which the second album, Feathers, arrived soon afterward. That record broadened the sonic palette of the debut by adding harmonium and harpsichord alongside cello from guest musician Su-a Lee.

In 2017 Ackroyd joined One Little Indian and issued the EP The Birds, consisting of acoustic-piano reworkings drawn from her initial two albums; all three tracks reappeared on the full-length Sketches, which combined further reworkings with four rough sketches that later surfaced on the February 2018 album Resolve. On that date she played upright and grand piano—both inside and out—using fingers, drumsticks, and plectrums, then arranged and multi-tracked the captured sounds; the same approach was applied to her own violin, pianino, harmonium, and spinet as well as to additional musicians performing cello, flute, clarinet, and bass clarinet. The eight-track companion album Resolve Reimagined, released in 2019, presented collaborative remixes featuring Hauschka, Max Cooper, Hidden Orchestra, and others.

After a period of performances and joint projects, Ackroyd turned to composing in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and surfaced in 2021 with the long-player Pause, followed by her own four-track remix collection Pause Reworked in 2022 and the Pause Reimagined EP in 2023, the latter featuring collaborations with Anne Müller, Alexandra Hamilton-Ayers, Hinako Omori, and Christina Vantzou.