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Biography

Adrian Knight (b. 1987) is a New York-based Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist. His work, which “paints a curious American landscape filled with nostalgia and decay, violence and melancholic solitude” (NewMusicBox), is characterized by its lush harmonic language, rhythmic plasticity, and startling unpredictability underpinning its ruminative surface. A musical polymath and tireless experimentalist, his compositions and recordings defy easy categorization and attest to his pursuit of an entirely intuitive music, tracing labyrinthine paths through unmapped territories. Knight’s scores are published by Project Schott New York and Svensk Musik.

Recent projects include Sometimes I dream for solo vibraphone, the hour-long Idea to Life (Success Stories)commissioned by The Living Earth Show, and Cherubics commissioned by Longleash. In addition, 2022 saw the release of several albums: Mall Music (Pink Pamphlet) including solo and ensemble works from 2010-2020, Life of the Party(Pink Pamphlet) and Damn the Flood (Regional Attraction). The sophomore album by San Francisco’s Mobius Trio, also released in 2019, featured Knight’s composition Bon Voyage as its title track. His album length piano piece Obsessions, commissioned and recorded by R. Andrew Lee, was lauded as “a substantial achievement” (New York Classical Review), “gorgeous, haunting” (The Brooklyn Rail) and “quietly eccentric…enigmatic but irrefutable” (Musikworks Magazine).

Previous commissions by The Living Earth Show, Andy Meyerson, Karl Larson, Maya Bennardo, the Johnstone Foundation, Bearthoven, TIGUE, Post:ballet, the Yale School of Drama, Margaret Lancaster, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and others have resulted in a sizable collection of works for diverse instruments, many of which have become mainstays of the ensembles’ repertoire.

His music has been presented worldwide at prominent venues and festivals including Spoleto Festival, Lincoln Center, Tribeca New Music Festival, Mass MoCA, (le) Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Avant Music Festival, Norberg Festival, Roulette, Fylkingen, Audiorama, EMPAC, Toledo Museum of Art, Tokyo University of the Arts and at numerous universities and colleges across North America.

His recordings have been released on Cantaloupe, Irritable Hedgehog, Innova, Galtta Media, Thanatosis, Slashsound and Perfect Wave, and have been featured on New Sounds WNYC, ClassicalMPR, WFMU, Resonance FM and NTS Radio to name a few.

He has received numerous awards and grants from the Society of Swedish Composers, STIM Sweden, ASCAP and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. Knight holds degrees from the Yale School of Music (M.M. 2011) and The Royal College of Music in Stockholm (B.A. 2009).

In addition to his compositional work, Knight is an accomplished studio musician and and an active member of several groups, including Blue Jazz TV, Alice Cohen and the Channel 14 Weather Team, Private Elevators and Synthetic Love Dream. His steady output of solo albums released on Galtta Media has generated a dedicated following in the underground cassette community.