Adam Paroussos is a London-based composer, sound designer, and performer working across film and live performance. He has collaborated internationally on projects spanning drama, documentary, comedy, experimental cinema, and multimedia work. His practice explores the boundaries between composition and sound design, drawing inspiration from the natural world, improvisation, and process-led experimentation.
A self-taught composer with a background in experimental theatre, Adam now works predominantly in film. Collaboration sits at the heart of his practice, and he enjoys working closely with directors throughout the filmmaking process to develop scores that grow organically from character, subtext, and narrative. Alongside screen work, he has a strong interest in site-specific projects and group-devised performance, creating music and sound that responds directly to space, movement, and audience.
As a multi-instrumentalist and trumpeter, Adam builds scores through a combination of traditional composition techniques and experimental production methods. His process often involves working with collected instruments and objects, electronic processing, synthesis, field recordings, and sampling. The resulting sound world has a handmade, organic quality — as if emerging from the ground or unfolding from the air — with music that feels alive, reactive, and in dialogue with the image.
Rather than smoothing over imperfections, Adam embraces sonic artefacts, finding harmony within texture and melody within irregularity. Scores often develop from a central auditory idea that radiates outward, intertwining musical threads that resonate with and subtly distort the emotional landscape of the film or performance.
Recent work includes The Golden Squacco Heron (dir. Edward Smyth), which had its world premiere in competition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival; MADHOUSE by Far Away Films, with executive producer Edgar Wright; sound design for Tornado Watch at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (2023); and sound design and composition for Have a Nice Day Forever, selected for the official competition at Music & Cinema – Festival International du Film à Marseille. Adam was also awarded Best Sound and Music for Viscera at the Style, Experimental, Fashion Film Festival, Los Angeles.
Adam has showcased work around the world including London, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Cyprus, Oslo, Zagreb, Prague, Marseille, and Portugal at venues and festivals such as:
BFI London Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Music & Cinema - Festival International du Film à Marseille, Barbican Cinema, Curzon cinema, Whitechapel Gallery, Roundhouse, Union Chapel, Wilderness Festival, Field Day, Supernormal Festival, Xarkis Festival, Pratt Institute, Half Moon Theatre, Platform Theatre, The Place, Camden Fringe, Faversham Fringe, Disk Theatre, Theatro Technis, Youtube Space, Trauma Bar and Kino, Siobhan Davies Studios, Flugwerk and more.
Collaborations include:
BBC New Creatives, Tate Lates, Far Away Films, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, Breakthrough Prize, Far Away Films, Jotdown Productions, Petri Delights, Sound Writing Kollab, Hackoustic, Curiosa Productions, Daylight Music, AKC Medika, Mutoid Waste Company, Secret Cinema, London Sinfonietta, Deptford X, Drama Centre London, Central Saint Martins, Andrea Zimmerman, Anna Meredith, Daniel Christopherson, Tatiana Delaunay, Jordan Chandler, Edward Smyth, Katharina Joy Book, Korallia Stergides, Julie Rose Bower, Geraldine Pilgrim and more.
2021 BAFTA Crew and BFI Network.