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Terry Riley

Background information
Birth name Terry Riley
Born June 24, 1935 (1935-06-24) (age 72)
Origin Colfax, California
Genre(s) Minimalist music
Occupation(s) Composer
Instrument(s) Piano, Keyboards, Saxophone

Terry Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school. Events 972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces takes place Year 1935 ( MCMXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Colfax is a city in Placer County, California, at the crossroads of Interstate 80 and State Route 174. A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other Minimalist music is an originally American genre of experimental or Downtown music named in the 1960s based mostly in consonant harmony, steady A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a Musical keyboard. The saxophone (commonly referred to simply as sax) is a conical- bored transposing Musical instrument considered a member of the Woodwind Events 972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces takes place Year 1935 ( MCMXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design especially Visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features

Contents

Life

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. Colfax is a city in Placer County, California, at the crossroads of Interstate 80 and State Route 174. Shasta College is an American two-year Community college located in Redding California. San Francisco State University (informally referred to as San Francisco State, SF State, State and SFSU) is a public University San Francisco Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917 is a Music school, with an enrollment of about 350 students The University of California Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a major research university located in Berkeley Robert Erickson ( March 7, 1917 in Marquette Michigan &ndash April 24, 1997 in San Diego California) was an American composer He was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center working with Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. The San Francisco Tape Music Center was founded in 1962 by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender as a "nonprofit cultural and educational corporation the Morton Subotnick (born April 13, 1933 in Los Angeles California) is an American Composer of Electronic music, best known WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3 Pauline Oliveros (born May 30, 1932 in Houston Texas) is an Accordionist and Composer who currently resides in Kingston New Ramon Sender (born Oct 29 1934 in Madrid Spain is a Composer, Writer and the co-founder with Morton Subotnick, of the San Francisco 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. Pandit Pran Nath ( Devanagari:पंडित प्राणनाथ) ( 3 November 1918 &ndash 13 June 1996) was a Hindustani La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14 1935) is an American Composer and musician Marian Zazeela (born 1940 is a light-artist designer painter and musician based in New York City Riley made numerous trips to India over the course of their association to study and to accompany him on tabla, tambura, and voice. This article is about the Indian drum For the drum with the same name in Arabic, see Goblet drum. The tambura ( Hindi: तानपूरा is a type of Stringed instrument found in different versions in different places around the world most are plucked 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. A piano bar (also known as a piano lounge) consists of a Piano or Electronic keyboard played by a professional Musician, located in Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers Riley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Music at Chapman University in 2007. Chapman University is a private nonprofit university located in the city of Orange in Orange County, California, USA

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. Kronos Quartet is a String quartet founded by Violinist David Harrington in 1973 Over the course of his career Riley has composed 13 string quartets for the ensemble, in addition to other works. A string quartet is a Musical ensemble of four String instruments &mdash usually two Violins a Viola and Cello &mdash or a piece 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. Rāga ( Sanskrit, lit "colour" or "mood" or rāgam in Carnatic music) refers to melodic modes used

Musical style and techniques

While his early endeavours were influenced by Stockhausen, Riley changed direction after first encountering La Monte Young, in whose Theater of Eternal Music he later performed from 1965-66. La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14 1935) is an American Composer and musician The Theatre of Eternal Music, sometimes later known as The Dream Syndicate, was a mid-sixties musical group formed by LaMonte Young that focused on experimental Riley has referred to Young as "the freakiest guy I have ever met in my life," stating that it was Young's ideas that were at the heart of minimalism, though more composers have come to name Riley himself as an influence. 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 Music, a scale is an ordered series of Musical intervals which along with the key or tonic, define the pitches However mode In the Compositional technique phasing, popularized by composer Steve Reich, the same part (a repetitive phrase is played on two Musical instruments in In C (1964) is probably Riley's best-known work and one that brought the minimalist music movement to prominence. In C is an aleatoric Musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people although he suggests "a group of about 35 is 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 and Philip Glass. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3 Jon Gibson (b March 11, 1940; Los Angeles California) is a flautist, saxophonist, and composer who uses other instruments from around Pauline Oliveros (born May 30, 1932 in Houston Texas) is an Accordionist and Composer who currently resides in Kingston New Morton Subotnick (born April 13, 1933 in Los Angeles California) is an American Composer of Electronic music, best known John Coolidge Adams (born February 15 1947 is an American Composer with strong roots in minimalism. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Philip Glass (born January 31 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.

This format, with a collection of minimal musical elements coming together to form a complex and cohesive whole, launched a movement that was a step away from the increasing academicism in western classical music. The complex formal structures of the Second Viennese School and the neoclassicists had dominated the classical musical landscape throughout the middle of the 20th century; the minimalistic movement abandoned that formalism. The Second Viennese School is the term generally used in English -speaking countries to denote the group of Composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg Neoclassicism in music was a 20th century development particularly popular in the period between the two World Wars in which composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century Riley often further denied strict structure by introducing improvisational elements into his compositions (though he had long been improvising in solo performance); one of the primary pieces to use this approach was his A Rainbow In Curved Air (1968). This work and Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, its companion piece on a recording issued in 1969, were intended to give a necessarily truncated impression of the sound of Riley's all-night concerts.

For a time Riley stopped notating his works at all, focusing on Indian classical music and solo performance. Working with the Kronos Quartet has led him back to more structured, notatable music, but improvisatory elements remain an important part even of the works composed for them.

Being on the leading edge of music was nothing new for Riley. Already in the 1950s he was 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. Tape loops are loops of prerecorded Magnetic tape used to create repetitive rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound He has composed in just intonation as well as microtonal pieces. In music just intonation is any Musical tuning in which the frequencies of Notes are related by Ratios of Whole numbers Any interval Microtonal music is Music using microtones — intervals of less than an equally spaced Semitone.

Riley's collaborators include the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, and, as mentioned, the Kronos Quartet. Pauline Oliveros (born May 30, 1932 in Houston Texas) is an Accordionist and Composer who currently resides in Kingston New Kronos Quartet is a String quartet founded by Violinist David Harrington in 1973

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. Michael McClure (born October 20 1932 in Marysville Kansas) is an American Poet, Playwright, Songwriter and "The Beard" is the 102nd episode of the hit NBC Situation comedy Seinfeld.

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. Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (born 19 May 1945 in Chiswick, London) is an English rock Guitarist, Singer, The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. The primary lineup consisted of guitarist Pete Townshend " Baba O'Riley " is a song by the English rock band The Who, written by Pete Townshend. Meher Baba ( Devanāgarī: मेहेर बाबा) (February 25 1894 Merwan Sheriar Irani – January 31 1969 was an Indian mystic and spiritual [1]

Notable works

Notable students

Films

See also

External links

References

Notes

  1. ^ (2002) Album notes for The Who: The Ultimate Collection by The Who, 12. The Ultimate Collection (2002 by The Who is a two disc greatest hits set with both singles and top hits from albums all of which have been remastered MCA Records.
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