Terry Riley

SCORE: The Great Beauty

Born in 1935 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, TERRY RILEY launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic In C in 1964. This seminal work provided the conception for a form comprised of interlocking repetitive patterns that was to change the course of 20th-century music. In the 1960s and ’70s he turned his attention to solo improvisational works for electronic keyboards and soprano saxophone, and pioneered the use of various kinds of tape delay in live per-formance. In 1970 Riley made his first of a series of trips to India to study with the renowned North Indian vocal Master, Pandit Pran Nath. Over the years he has frequently appeared with Pandit Pran Nath as a vocal and tamboura accompanist. Riley taught North Indian Raga and music composition during his years at Mills College in Oakland, California, in the 1970s. It was there he met David Harrington, the founder and first violinist in the Kronos Quartet, and began the long association that has produced nine string quartets, a keyboard quintet, Crows Rosary, and a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, The Sands, commissioned by the Salzberg Festival in 1991.

Photo and bio courtesy of www.otherminds.org