California Composer Terry Riley launched what is now known as the Minimalist movement with his revolutionary classic IN C in 1964. This seminal work provided a new concept in musical form based on interlocking repetitive patterns. It's impact was to change the course of 20th Century music and it's influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams and in the music of Rock Groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, Curved Air and many others. Terry's hypnotic, multi-layered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated eastern flavored improvisations and compositions set the stage for the New Age movement that was to appear a decade or so later.
In 1970, Terry became a disciple of the revered North Indian Raga Vocalist, Pandit Pran Nath and made the first of his numerous trips to India to study with the Master. He appeared frequently in concert with the legendary singer as tampura, tabla and vocal accompanist over the next 26 years until Pran Naths passing in 1996. He has been co-director along with Sufi Murshid, Shabda Kahn of the Chisti Sabri India music study tours since 1993. This yearly 2 week study program in India is designed to give students a deeper insight into Pran Naths profound contributions to the Classical music of India. Terry now regularly performs Raga as a vocalist along with his teaching seminars.
While teaching at Mills College in Oakland in the 1970's he met David Harrington, founder and leader of the Kronos Quartet and they began the long association that has so far produced 12 string quartets,a quintet Crows Rosary and a concerto for string quartet, The Sands which was the Salzburg Festival's first ever new music commission. Cadenza on the Night Plain was selected by both Time and Newsweek as one of the 10 best Classical albums of the year. The epic 5 quartet cycle, Salome Dances for Peace was selected as the #1 Classical album album of the year by USA Today and was nominated for a Grammy.
Riley's innovative first orchestral piece Jade Palace was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the Centennial celebration 1990/91. It was premiered there by Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony. June Buddha's, for Chorus and Orchestra, based on Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues was commissioned by the Koussevitsky foundation in 1991. The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Array Music, Zeitgeist, the Steven Scott Bowed Piano Ensemble, The California E.A.R. unit, Guitarist's David Tanenbaum, the Assad brothers. The Abel Steinberg-Winant Trio, Pianist Werner Bartschi and the Amati Quartet are some of the performers and ensembles who have commissioned and performed his works.
From 1989 to1993 he formed and lead the ensemble Khayal to perform works written for them. He regularly performs solo piano concerts of his works from the past 30 years. He also appears in duo concerts with Indian Sitarist Krishna Bhatt, Saxophonist George Brooks and Italian Bassist Stefano Scodanibbio.
In 1992, he formed the small theater company, The Travelling-Avantt-Gaard to perform the chamber opera The Saint Adolf Ring based on the divinely mad drawings, poetry, writings and mathematical calculations of Adolf Woelfli, an early 20th century Swiss Artist who suffered from schizophrenia and created his entire output over a 35 year span while confined in a mental institution.
Riley was listed in the London Sunday Times as “one of the 1000 makers of the 20th Century.”
Web: http://www.terryriley.com/biography.htm

Terry Riley (Colfax, California, 1935) è un caposcuola, uno dei personaggi più interessanti del panorama musicale degli ultimi quattro decenni. Il suo collocarsi al crocevia delle esperienze e degli ambiti più diversi (dall’avanguardia colta al jazz, alla grande tradizione indiana) lo rende una sintesi vivente dell’attuale magmatico rimescolamento musicale. Nel 1964 lancia, con In C, il manifesto della musica minimalista. Ha influenzato tutta una generazione di musicisti, da Steve Reich, Philip Glass e John Adams ad altri di estrazione pop quali i Curved Air, Soft Machine, Who, Tangerine Dream e Robert Fripp, fino alla New Age. Allievo del celebre cantante indiano Pandit Pran Nath, che accompagnerà in diversi tour in occidente, è stato anche il primo compositore, nel 1981, a scrivere per il Kronos Quartet.