Terry Riley – (Portrait by Betty Freeman)

Terry Riley (born 24 June 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school. Image File history File links Terry01. ... Image File history File links Terry01. ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about on art and design. ...

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. His most influential teacher, however, was the late Pandit Pran Nath, 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 sixties he travelled 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. Colfax is a city located in Placer County, California. ... Shasta College is an American two-year community college located in Redding, California. ... San Francisco State University is a branch of the California State University system. ... It has been suggested that UC Mens Chorale be merged into this article or section. ... Pandit Pran Nath (1918–1996) was an esteemed Hindustani music vocalist and teacher of the Kirana Gharana who placed emphasis on the alap section of a raga performance. ... La Monte Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer whose eccentric and often hard-to-find works have been included among the most important post World War II avant-garde or experimental music. ... a typical set of Tabla, black spots called Syahi The tabla is a widely popular South Asian percussion instrument used in the classical, popular and religious music of the northern Indian subcontinent. ... The tambura is a type of string instrument found in different versions in different places around the world; most are plucked lutes. ... A piano bar (also known as a piano lounge) consists of a piano or electronic keyboard played by a professional musician, located in a cocktail lounge or bar . ... Mills College is a private womens liberal arts college located in Oakland, California, USA. It has played an important role in modern American music through its post-graduate program in experimental music, and is highly regarded for its English and Education departments. ...

Also during the sixties 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 it, in addition to a few 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. The Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. ... The resident string quartet of the Library of Congress in 1963 A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written to be performed by such a group. ... Raga (rāg /राग (Hindi), raga (Anglicised from rāgaḥ/रागः (Sanskrit)) or rāgam /ராகம் (Tamil)) are the melodic modes used in Indian classical music. ...

Musical style and techniques

While his early endeavours were influenced by Stockhausen, Riley changed direction after first encountering La Monte Young, whose Theater of Eternal Music he performed in 1955 and 1956. 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 latched on to the repetitive short phrases that he (and minimalism) are now known for. Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a composer. ... It was a mid-sixties experimental musical group featuring La Monte Young and John Cale. ...

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 minimalistic 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 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 stream 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 music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic, define the pitches. ... In music the compositional technique phasing, discovered by composer Steve Reich, is that while the same part is played on two musical instruments, one instrumentalist keeps playing in steady tempo, while the other gradually moves ahead of the first until it becomes out of and then back in phase (the... In C is an aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of unspecified performers, but preferably 35 or more. ... Steve Reich Steve Reich (born Stephen Michael Reich, October 3, 1936; last name pronounced []) is an American composer. ... Jon Gibson (b. ... Pauline Oliveros (born 1932 in Houston, Texas) is an accordionist and composer who currently resides in Kingston, New York. ... Morton Subotnick (born 1933) is an American composer of minimal electronic music, best known for his Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch, and composed on the Buchla modular synthesizer which he helped to design. ... John Coolidge Adams (b. ... Philip Glass looks upon sheet music in a portrait taken by Annie Leibovitz. ...

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. 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. The Second Viennese School was a group of composers made up of Arnold Schoenberg and those who studied under him in early 20th century Vienna. ... 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, though some of the inspiring canon was drawn as much from the Baroque period as the Classical period - for this reason...

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. He has composed in just intonation as well as microtonal pieces. Tape loops are loops of prerecorded magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns. ... In music, Just intonation, also called rational intonation, is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by whole number ratios; that is, by positive rational numbers. ... Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the notes between the cracks of the piano. ...

Collaborators of Riley's include the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, and, as mentioned, the Kronos Quartet, as well as Michael McClure, a playwright with whom he has written music and collaborated on an album. The Rova Saxophone Quartet formed in October 1977 at the same time as their less-adventerous but more well known colleagues the World Saxophone Quartet. ... Pauline Oliveros (born 1932 in Houston, Texas) is an accordionist and composer who currently resides in Kingston, New York. ... The Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. ... Michael McClure, an American poet and playwright, was born in Marysville, Kansas on (October 20, 1932). ...

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 apparently named in tribute to Riley as well as to Meher Baba. Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (born May 19, 1945 in Chiswick, London) is an influential British rock guitarist and songwriter who is best known for his work with The Who. ... The Yamaha PSR-295, an entry-level electronic keyboard synthesizer. ... The Who are a British rock band that first came to prominence in the 1960s. ... Wont Get Fooled Again is a rock song performed by the British rock band The Who and composed by band member Pete Townshend. ... Baba ORiley (often incorrectly titled Teenage Wasteland) is a song written by Pete Townshend for his Lifehouse project, a rock opera which was to be the follow-up to The Whos 1969 opera, Tommy. ... Meher Baba on the cover of his book, Discourses. ...

Notable works

• A Rainbow in Curved Air
• The Harp of New Albion (1986), for piano tuned in just intonation
• In C
• Shri Camel (1980), for solo electronic organ tuned in just intonation and modified by computerized digital delay
• Salome Dances for Peace
• Chanting the Light of Foresight, with Rova Saxophone Quartet in just intonation
• Persian Surgery Dervishes
• Sun Rings for the Kronos Quartet
• Church of Anthrax, with John Cale

A Rainbow in Curved Air is a debut album by experimental music pioneer Terry Riley. ... In C is an aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of unspecified performers, but preferably 35 or more. ... Chanting the Light of Foresight (imbas forasnai) is a 1987 composition by Terry Riley written for and commissioned by the Rova Saxophone Quartet, though during the course of the composition it was decided that Rova would compose The Chord of War and The Pipes of Medb/Medbs Blues contains... The Rova Saxophone Quartet is a San Francisco-based all-saxophone band formed in October 1977 at the same time as their less-adventurous but better known colleagues the World Saxophone Quartet. ... The Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. ... Track listing Church of Anthrax The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles The Soul of Patrick Lee Ides of March The Protege Categories: | | | ... John Cale is a Welsh musician, songwriter and record producer. ...

See also

• John Adams
• Philip Glass
• Steve Reich
• La Monte Young

John Coolidge Adams (b. ... Philip Glass looks upon sheet music in a portrait taken by Annie Leibovitz. ... Steve Reich Steve Reich (born Stephen Michael Reich, October 3, 1936; last name pronounced []) is an American composer. ... La Monte Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer whose eccentric and often hard-to-find works have been included among the most important post World War II avant-garde or experimental music. ...

External links

• Terry Riley's home page
• Otherminds.org score of In C
• Interview with Terry Riley
• NewMusicBox: Terry Riley in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, 2000
• Epitonic.com: Terry Riley featuring tracks from The Book of Abbeyozzud and The Light of Foresight (with Rova)
• Art of the States: Terry Riley In C (1964)

The Rova Saxophone Quartet formed in October 1977 at the same time as their less-adventerous but more well known colleagues the World Saxophone Quartet. ...

References

Edward Strickland, "Terry Riley". Grove Music Online. (subscription access) The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is a dictionary of music and musicians, generally considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. ...