Poppy Ackroyd, a pianist, violinist, and composer born in London in 1982, is the daughter of artist Norman Ackroyd. She trained as a classical musician and holds a master’s degree. A proponent of performance art and contemporary playing styles, she uses various tools such as a pick, an electronic bow, or drumsticks to explore the sonic possibilities of her instruments. Her compositions, influenced by the minimalist and repetitive music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, are then refined on the computer. Her meeting with multi-instrumentalist and producer Joe Acheson led to collaborations with the Joe Acheson Quartet (2005–2009) and, starting in 2010, with the Hidden Orchestra. She recorded three albums with this group before embarking on a solo career. Accompanied by conceptual performances, the albums Escapement (2012) and Feathers (2014) were released by the label Denovali Records, then reissued by One Little Indian, with whom Poppy Ackroyd signed in 2017 for her subsequent minimalist works, Sketches (2017) and Resolve (2018), mixed by Joe Acheson, featuring cellist Jo Quail, percussionist and hang player Manu Delago, and clarinetist Mike Lesirge. In 2019, its electronic counterpart, Resolve Reimagined, consisting of remixes, was released. Poppy Ackroyd continued to expand her sonic palette on the albums Pause (2021) and Liminal (2026).
