Andrew Poppy
Andrew Poppy was born in Chatham, Kent in 1954. In a home that didn’t buy a TV until the 1966 World Cup, his creative future was shaped listening to early Elvis singles and tape loop cut-ups by seminal avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen on pirate radio.
Having initially worked in a Marconi electronics factory, Poppy studied at Kingsway College under the Scartch Orchestra’s David Smith, then Goldsmith’s College and composition seminars with minimalist genius John Cage. In the late 70s he co-founded Regular Music and then in the early 80s, the minimalist umbrella group The Lost Jockey whose first performance at the Air Gallery comprised Philip Glass's Music in Fifths, Steve Reich's Four Organs and Poppy’s own Cadenza.
Having recorded at Abbey Road for Crepsecule (Lost Jockey, 1982) and influential industrial label Operation Twilight (Professor Slack, 1982), Poppy left The Lost Jockey and began a series of collaborations with leftfield pop and rock bands, which continues to this day. He has provided orchestral scores and arrangements Nitzer Ebb, The The, Psychic TV, Erasure, The House of Love, Black, Simon Fisher Turner and Coil.
Andrew Poppy was signed to Trevor Horn’s Zang Tumb Tuum (ZTT) label by Paul Morley in 1984. He produced two acclaimed albums of minimalism and early classical/electronic crossover: The Beating of Wings (1985) and Alphabed (A Mystery Dance) (1987) and one – Under The Son (1988) – which went unreleased until 2004. Poppy left ZTT in 1988 and has since released albums including Recordings with The Balanescu Quartet (1992), Ophelia/Ophelia (1995), Rude Bloom (1995) and Time at Rest Devouring its Secret (2000).
His compositions are regularly performed all over the world and has been commissioned by Liverpool Philharmonia Orchestra. The last 12 months has seen Noszferatu perform More Matter Less at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Poems & Toccatas performed by Darragh Morgan (violin) and Mary Dullea (piano) at the Washington (USA) Composers Forum, and Last Light performed by the Mostar Sinfonietta in Bosnia. Last Light was also performed by The Zwa Zulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa alongside works by Purcell, Holst, Elgar and Nyman.
Composing music with a true visual identity, Avalanche Thoughts (2002) - which was showcased in New York and the UK’s New Territories Festival – was a collaboration with filmmaker Julia Bardsley and is just one of Poppy’s works in film. He has also worked on many themes for the BBC and Channel 4 including The Tube, Edinburgh Nights, The Mystery of the Pescardo, Tapping The Energy and Directors Place.
In 2004 Poppy’s 50th birthday is celebrated with a special concert at the Trinity College of Music, a box set of his early work on ZTT and the completion of a new project, a piano/vocal album with electronic icon Claudia Brucken entitled Another Language.
