Terry Riley

Terry Riley ( * June 24, 1935 in Colfax, California) is an American composer and pianist. He contributed with his adapted from the Asian and African trance music " micro- polyphonic " structures "invention" of minimal music, though as their most popular representative Steve Reich and Philip Glass are mentioned. So Riley leads in the mid- 1960s, a composition technique of pattern -music based on rhythmic models. He studied in the early 1970s Indian singing and teaches many years of classical Indian music. As one of the first composers he worked as early as 1963, during the recording of Music for the poison in Paris, with loops and time delays on the basis of an arrangement that was developed by an unknown engineer who worked for Riley. Terry Riley called this precursor of later echo devices Time Lag Accumulator. Later, a similar arrangement of Robert Fripp under the name Frippertronics was known. There are two Revox tape machines, which determines the spatial distance of the machines to each other the length of the tape loop and thus the delay.

A Rainbow in Curved Air inspired Pete Townshend of The Who to his synthesizer implementations at the songs Will not Get Fooled Again and Baba O'Riley where the title is meant as a tribute to Riley and Meher Baba. In addition the band Curved Air, named after the composition.

An accomplished pianist, singer and improviser Riley also appeared worldwide as a solo artist. Throughout his career, he worked together with such diverse artists. Riley has won many awards, such as for his works for the Kronos Quartet, for which he wrote 15 works, including thirteen string quartets and The Sands, a concerto for string quartet and orchestra.