Jude Cowan Montague is an artist, writer, composer, film historian, poet and broadcaster. She was born in Manchester, grew up in Bolton and has lived and worked in London. She has Scottish, Irish and Baltic heritage.

Jude Cowan Montague
Cowan Montague in the film vaults at Grays Inn Road while working for ITN/Reuters
Background information
BornCrumpsall, Manchester, England
Occupations
  • Artist
  • writer
  • composer
  • songwriter
  • broadcaster
Instruments
Websitejudecowanmontague.com

Education

edit

Cowan Montague graduated with a first from St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. She has a PhD In Film History and in 2013 acquired an MA in Fine Art from Camberwell School of Arts (now known as Camberwell College of Arts).[1]

Music

edit

Cowan Montague is a controversial songwriter, whose work divides critics. Her folk-cabaret album Doodlebug Alley was described as having 'a Marmite-like quality - you'll either love it or hate it'.[2] She has released various LPs on Richard Sanderson's Linear Obsessional label. The second, 'Winter Hill Sings' was the first physical release of the cult netlabel and sold out straight away.[3] In 2015 Disco Fair and Folkwit Records co-released the LP 'The Leidenfrost Effect' by Jude C. Montague and the Dutch composer and producer Wim Oudijk, a record praised by one music journalist as 'compulsive listening' while also describing it as 'wilfully idiosyncratic and determinedly strange'.[4] Her one-woman theatre shows utilize simple musical features.[5]

Broadcasting

edit

She is the creator and host of 'The News Agents' a weekly show on Resonance FM whose tagline was'where news meets arts'.[6] The show began to air in January 2014, going out weekly on Saturdays from 2:30pm to 3:30pm GMT/BST. The show is creative and new work is produced in the studio for the show, usually live.[7] One of the resulting pieces by a guest artist is Bruce Hamilton's 'Hennecker's Ditch Fantasy' an acousmatic text-sound composition based on a poem by Katharine Kilalea.[8][9] Cowan Montague won the inaugural John Turner Prize with her essay 'Women at Work for War! Women at Work for the things of Peace'. The work considers the representation of women in the British propaganda newsreel, Indian News Parade, which ran in India from 1943 to 1946.[10] While working as an archivist for Reuters Television News she began to write poetry and her first collection of poems about international news agency stories in 2008 was the subject of an interview with anchorman Jon Snow for a Reuters Television News report in 2011.[11]

Poetry

edit

Her first collection of poems, 'For the Messengers' (Donut Press, 2011) was conceived and written while working for the Thomson Reuters news agency as an archivist.[12] In her preface she wrote 'My daily viewing now included content such as the immediate aftermath of disasters and bombings ... It felt a natural step to try to process my response to this work by writing; and poetry, for me, was the best medium. My writing quickly became a habit, almost a compulsion, quite possibly a therapy.' [13] Her second collection of prints and poems is about a visit to a Mauritian family in Port Louis, 'The Groodoyals of Terre Rouge' has been summarized as 'a colourful travelogue' and extracts of prints and poems featured as a mini project in the art blog 'Very Small Kitchen'.[14][15] She has had work published in poetry magazines internationally and is currently editing an anthology of news poetry. [16][17][18]

Cowan Montague is a graduate of the Camberwell School of Arts and winner of the Gwen May RE Award from the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 2013.[6] She creates large intaglio based monoprints. She says, 'I create worlds in which the viewer's imagination can roam; floating characters through my landscapes carry out secretive and subversive actions.'[19] She exhibits internationally and in London's underground art community and is a featured artist with Lab451London.[20][21][22]

Bibliography

edit
  • The Originals, Hesterglock Press, 2017 ISBN 978-0-244-90036-6
  • The Wires, 2012, Wisdom's Bottom Press, 2016 ISBN 978-0-9935502-1-8
  • The Groodoyals of Terre Rouge, Dark Windows Press, 2013 ISBN 978-0-9571644-8-2
  • For the Messengers, Donut Press, 2011 ISBN 9780956644510

Discography

edit
  • To India (2018, LP, Mottingham Records)
  • Montague Armstrong, Hammond Hits (2018, LP, Linear Obsessional)
  • #1 Caretaker of Animals around the World (2016, LP, Hardy Cuttings)
  • The Leidenfrost Effect (2015, LP, Folkwit Records)
  • Cairo Compression (2015, LP, Linear Obsessional)
  • Winter Hill Sings (2013, EP, Linear Obsessional)
  • Barbie and Ken (2013, EP, Folkwit Records)
  • Bukittinggi Tales (2011, EP, Linear Obsessional)
  • Lamb & Tyger (2011, LP, Ah Sunflower!)
  • Doodlebug Alley (2010, LP, Jude Cowan)
  • To America (2000, LP, Jude Cowan)

Other works

edit
  • Springfield Olympics, E-magazine 2012

References

edit
  1. ^ "Jude Cowan Montague | St Edmund Hall". Seh.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  2. ^ "Doodlebug Alley by Jude Cowan".
  3. ^ "Linear Obsessional: an interview with Richard Sanderson | We need no swords". Weneednoswords.wordpress.com. 14 January 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  4. ^ "FATEA - Reviews". Fatea-records.co.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  5. ^ 'Creating Solo Performance' by Sean Bruno, Luke Dixon (Routledge, 2014) p.147.
  6. ^ a b "Jude Cowan Montague: Music, printing and prizes". Arts London News. 3 March 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  7. ^ "ORGAN THING: Who are the News Agents? Resonance FM has the answer | THE ORGAN". Organart.wordpress.com. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  8. ^ "About Seamus" (PDF). Seamus.music.vt.edu. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  9. ^ "iTunes - Podcasts - The London Arts Review - Theatre, film, art reviews & new music from The Flaneur by Theatre, Art, Film and Music from The Flaneur". Itunes.apple.com. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  10. ^ "Articles and Mass Observation Reports · British Universities Film & Video Council". Bufvc.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  11. ^ "UNITED KINGDOM: Poetry is released from the vaults of a news agency archive". Itnsource.com. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  12. ^ Pen Pusher Magazine 16, Summer/Autumn 2010
  13. ^ Magma 50, Reviews p.6
  14. ^ "Vsk Project Jude Cowan Montague: The Goodroyals Of Terre Rouge". VerySmallKitchen. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  15. ^ "'The Groodoyals of Terre Rouge' by Jude Cowan Montague | Sabotage". Sabotagereviews.com. 17 June 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  16. ^ 'The Business of Artists' Oxford Magazine No. 349, Fifth Week, Trinity Term 2014, p. 17
  17. ^ "Menacing Hedge". Menacing Hedge. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  18. ^ "New life". Baroqueinhackney.com. 27 February 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  19. ^ Printmaking Today Vol. 23 No. 1 Spring 2014, p. 20.
  20. ^ "The Best Art From London Invited to Exhibit in Pune | Lorenzo Belenguer". Huffingtonpost.co.uk. 4 December 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  21. ^ "London car park artshow – We Could Not Agree at the Q Park, Cavendish Square | urban75 blog". Urban75.org. 9 February 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  22. ^ "The Best of Contemporary Art Goes to the 56th Venice Biennale | Lorenzo Belenguer". Huffingtonpost.co.uk. 22 April 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
edit