» Edit Band Information
» Edit Albums
» Add a Review
» Add an Album
» Add MP3
» Add News | Terry Riley
Other, Classical |
Terry Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school.
Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University, and the
San Francisco Conservatory before earning an MA in composition at the University of California,
Berkeley, studying with Seymour Shifrin and Robert Erickson. He was involved in the experimental
San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros,
and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918–1996), a
m ...read more
Terry Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school.
Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Shasta College, San Francisco State University, and the
San Francisco Conservatory before earning an MA in composition at the University of California,
Berkeley, studying with Seymour Shifrin and Robert Erickson. He was involved in the experimental
San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros,
and Ramon Sender. His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918–1996), a
master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Riley made
numerous trips to India over the course of their association to study and to accompany him on
tabla, tambura, and voice. Throughout the 1960s he traveled frequently around Europe as well,
taking in musical influences and supporting himself by playing in piano bars, until he joined the Mills
College faculty in 1971 to teach Indian classical music. Riley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate
Degree in Music at Chapman University in 2007.
While his early endeavours were influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Riley changed direction after
first encountering La Monte Young, in whose Theater of Eternal Music he later performed from
1965-66. The String Quartet (1960) was Riley’s first work in this new style; it was followed shortly
after by a string trio, in which he first employed the repetitive short phrases that he (and
minimalism) are now known for.
His music is usually based on improvising through a series of modal figures of different lengths,
such as in In C and the Keyboard Studies. In C (1964) is probably Riley’s best-known work and one
that brought the minimalist music movement to prominence. Its first performance was given by
Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick, among others, and it has
influenced their work and that of many others, including John Adams, Roberto Carnevale, and Philip
Glass. Its form was an innovation: the piece consists of 53 separate modules of roughly one
measure apiece, each containing a different musical pattern but each, as the title implies, in C. One
performer beats a steady pulse of Cs on the piano to keep tempo. The others, in any number and on
any instrument, perform these musical modules following a few loose guidelines, with the different
musical modules interlocking in various ways as time goes on. The Keyboard Studies are similarly
structured – a single-performer version of the same concept.
In the 1950s he was already working with tape loops, a technology then in its infancy, and he has
continued manipulating tapes to musical effect, both in the studio and in live performance,
throughout his career. He has composed in just intonation as well as microtonal pieces.
Riley’s collaborators include the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, and, as mentioned,
the Kronos Quartet.
He has also had a notable collaboration with Beat poet Michael McClure, with whom he has released
several CDs and most recently contributed music to a London revival of his play The Beard.
A Rainbow In Curved Air inspired Pete Townshend’s synthesizer parts on The Who’s “Won’t Get
Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley”, the latter named in tribute to Riley as well as to Meher Baba.
Also during the 1960s were the famous “All-Night Concerts”, during which Riley performed mostly
improvised music from evening until sunrise, using an old organ harmonium (“with a vacuum cleaner
motor blower blowing into the ballasts”) and tape-delayed saxophone. When he finally wanted a
break, after hours of playing, he played back looped saxophone fragments recorded throughout the
evening. For several years he continued to put on these concerts, to which people came with
sleeping bags, hammocks, and their whole families.
Riley began his long-lasting association with the Kronos Quartet by meeting its founder, David
Harrington, while at Mills. Over the course of his career Riley has composed 13 string quartets for
the ensemble, in addition to other works. He wrote his first orchestral piece, Jade Palace, in 1991,
and has continued to pursue that avenue, with several commissioned orchestral compositions
following. Riley is also currently performing and teaching both as an Indian raga vocalist and as a
solo pianist. « hide |
Similar Bands: La Monte Young, Steve Reich
Contributors: liledman, Seek and Destroy, Doppelganger,
|
