Biography

Aki Pasoulas is a London-based composer of electroacoustic and acoustic music, and lectures at the Universities of City London, Middlesex, and the Arts London where he is Acting MA Course Director. He is currently finalising his doctoral research at City University under the supervision of Denis Smalley. Aki's research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), investigates the listener's experience and interpretation of time passing, and the interrelationships among timescales in electroacoustic composition. Further research interests include psychoacoustics, microsound, spatialisation, sound poetry and the use of voice in non-western musics.

Aki originally studied and worked as a graphic designer, before embarking into music studies at the Open University and then at Goldsmiths College, University of London, from where he graduated with first class honours. His BMus concentrated on contemporary art music, composition and ethnomusicology. He subsequently gained a distinction for his master's degree at Goldsmiths, specialising in electroacoustics.

Aki's composition teachers have included Simon Emmerson, Katharine Norman and Roger Redgate. Throughout his creative contact with music he became involved in various artistic forms of auditory communication in search of new timbres, means of expression and structures of sound data, organising and performing with diverse ensembles, with material ranging from minimalism and post-punk, to experimental music with vocal utterances, acoustic instruments and found objects, electroacoustic improvisations, mixed works and acousmatic compositions. Aki has written many pieces for various combinations of instruments, voice, recorded and electronic sound, lyrics for many songs, a number of poems, and a series of surrealist writings. He has composed music for the theatre and for short animation films, and has taken part in many concerts worldwide.

Aki is a SAM (former spnm) shortlisted composer for 2008-2011. His compositions received honorable mentions and shortlisted at international composition competitions such as Métamorphoses 2008 in Belgium, and Concours Internationaux 2009 (Musiques Electroacoustiques et Arts Electroniques) in France. His music has been selected for presentation at key events including the ICMC in Montreal, Canada, the smc in Porto, Portugal, the international Festival Synthèse in Bourges, France, the Sonoimágenes international acousmatic and multimedia festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the SAW electroacoustic symposium in Cardiff, the ISCM World New Music Days festival in Sydney, Australia, and the ICMC in New York. His latest major composition was selected for inclusion in the ICMC 2010 CD, published by ICMA. A concert dedicated to Aki's music took place at Alte Schmiede in Vienna, Austria, in April 2010.

(updated: July 2010)