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Along
with his former Berkeley classmate La Monte Young, Terry Riley is the big
daddy of the school of composing formerly known as Minimalist, and best
known for groundbreaking works such as In C (1968), A Rainbow in
Curved Air
(1969), Persian Surgery Dervishes (1971) and Cadenza on the Night Plain (2006). Riley's curious path
has led him from the outer reaches of modern jazz to Euro serialism/musique
concrte/electronics, and has found him drawing deeply as well on
"West Coast" ideas of indeterminacy via John Cage and the
alternative-tonality worlds of Harry Partch and Lou Harrison. Long
foregoing his "minimalist" style (a creaky old term useful only
to music critics, he says with a patient laugh), he's engaged in ongoing
studies in Indian, North African and Asian musics that have enabled him to
compose, somewhat full-circle-like, chamber and orchestral pieces, albeit
of a decidedly non-European flavor. These works include many in
collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, including Salome Dances for Peace, Requiem
for Adam and
a fantastically transcendent recent piece called The Cusp of Magic.
The
very shape, scope and execution of In C was, in retrospect, a perfect
example of a California composer thinking outside the rhombus. Riley
recently talked about its genesis and his longtime residence in the musical
none-of-the-above.
BLUEFAT: Is there something about Left
Coast composers that might indicate a different way of thinking about
music, and life? Can you see yourself fitting into that category of
composers?
TERRY
RILEY: I
guess I fit in as well as anybody. I've lived here all my life in
California, and worked here, and whenever I go anywhere and do anything,
that's what I'm known as. So yeah, I think I fit in pretty well. I don't
think there's a stylistic link between all the people who live on the West
Coast.
You're
originally from the Bay Area, aren't you?
I
was born up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where I live now. Three and
half hours from the Bay Area.
How
much did your physical environment affect your views about music and art?
Well,
I grew up in the country, and just the fact that I got used to relating to
nature a lot, as a kid, does maybe affect the way you feel in the rhythms
of music and even the tones of music. The environment does affect it pretty
strongly. I didn't spend much time in an urban environment; I think that
shapes it some way. I can't say exactly how, because you can live in a very
nice urban environment and make quiet, peaceful music if that's what you
want to do. In general I'd say that there's something in these environments
which definitely affects the way we perceive music.
(continued)
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