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Terry Riley

Terry Riley is an American composer and musician, born June 24, 1935, in Colfax, California. He’s a pioneer of minimalism in music, known for his innovative use of repetition, tape loops, and improvisation. His 1964 composition In C is a landmark minimalist work, featuring short musical fragments repeated by performers at their own pace, creating a shifting, hypnotic texture. Riley also explored electronic music and Indian classical music, studying with Pandit Pran Nath, which influenced works like A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969). He’s collaborated with artists like Kronos Quartet and continues to perform and compose, blending classical, jazz, and global music traditions.

Source: Grok AI

Attentive listening suggested! Terry Riley, Ingrid Laubrock, Roscoe Mitchell and Kaze with Koichi Makigami

by Hobart Taylor
June 25, 2025

This week we explore the peripheries of jazz featuring composer Terry Riley who turns 90 this year, contemplate musical and literal koans from Ingrid Laubrock and friends, receive “Transmissions" from Roscoe Mitchell, join Wadada Leo Smith with Amina Claudine Myers on a “Central Park" ramble, and then there's Kaze with Koichio Makigami Playlist Host Speaks 00:00 Terry Riley “Celestial Valley" from Shri Camel (Columbia) 01:51 Catherine Sikora Susan Alcorn “Filament iii" from Filament (Self Produced) 13: 20 Host ...

Album Review

Terry Riley: Keyboard Studies

Read "Keyboard Studies" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
June 21, 2022

For some devotees of Terry Riley and John Tilbury the initial reaction to this album may be one of concern for the well-being of the two protagonists, Riley the composer and Tilbury the keyboardist, friends since the late '60s. After all, the sum of their ages exceeds one-hundred-and-seventy-something, and the music here is full-on throughout the album's three tracks and seventy-two-minute duration. However, rest assured; the CD sleeve carries this information in small lettering, “Archive recordings made in Hamburg in ...

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Recording

One-Note Wonders

Source: All About Jazz
February 10, 2010

The best performances of Terry Riley's 1964 minimalist classic In C come off like great sex: variations are gradually introduced and then withdrawn from a rhythmic structureand when it's all over, you have a trancelike “what just happened?" kind of hum in your head.

Created as a shot across the bow of midcentury atonal complexity, In C is typically driven by a pianist who pounds out a C note, in different octaves, for the entire piece, while a group of ...
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Music Industry

Terry Riley:the Cusp of Magic

Source: All About Jazz
May 19, 2008

By: Josh Potter

The story of American music has largely been that of vernacular traditions - their unlikely origins, evolution, and (ultimate) transcendence. When minimalist composers like Terry Riley started synthesizing Eastern idioms into classical arrangements, art music joined the conversation. Fellow minimalists Phillip Glass and John Adams have made the natural transition to scoring films, but Riley (as well as Steve Reich) has continued to toil in the avant-garde. The Cusp of Magic (Nonesuch) is only the latest of ...
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Performance / Tour

Composers Collaborative Festival & Terry Riley's In C This Weekend at the Cornelia Street Cafe

Source: All About Jazz
August 19, 2005

August 19, 2005 To: Listings/Critics/Features From: JAZZ PROMO SERVICES Press Contact: JIM EIGO, [email protected] Cornelia Street Cafe 29 Cornelia Street Greenwich Village, NY 10014 Tel: 212-989-9319 Fax: 212-243-4207 Web: corneliastreetcafe.com between West 4th and Bleecker Sts, Greenwich Village 1,9 Subway to Sheridan Square; A, C, E, B, D, F to West 4th St. “a culinary as well as a cultural landmark" Mayoral Proclamation, City of New York 1987 This Week at Cornelia Street Cafe August 19 thg 21 Fri Aug ...
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