Rhys Chatham

Bio:

This is the official Myspace site of Rhys Chatham.

I don't use myspace for social networking anymore because there are so many ads and everything is so cluttered, I avoid opening it unless absolutely necessary. 99% of the friend requests I get are from bands who obviously have absolutely no link to what I do, so I delete them.

If you really want me to friend you, write me privately on myspace explaining briefly what your interest is, and I'll friend you in that case. If you want daily info on my activities, check out my Facebook page.

Here is a biref bio on me, for those who are interested:

Hi. My name is Rhys. I'm a classically-trained composer from New York. I was born in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. And yes, this is really me. I'm not dead yet. At least not the last time I took my pulse: this is the official site.

After I got out of conservatory, I was a concert producer at a place in Soho called the Kitchen, I founded the music program and produced people like Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Micheal Nyman, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich on the avant garde side of things, and Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Fred Frith on the alternative rock side of things.

After a number of years as a concert producer, I got tired of producing other people's music. I had heard an early concert of the Ramones and was inspired by it, so I picked up electric guitar and made a composition called GUITAR TRIO in 1976/77 which combined the minimalist tendencies within which I had been working with a rock instrumentation and musicians.

I was introduced to electronic music and composition by Morton Subotnick in the late 60s, in the early seventies I studied composition with La Monte Young and played in Tony Conrad's early group, these guys are, along with Terry Riley, the founders of American minimalism; so Guitar Trio is a bit like, Tony Conrad meets the Ramones!

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After working with 3 electric guitars, I upped the number to 6, and finally in 1989 to 100 electric guitars with a piece called AN ANGEL MOVES TOO FAST TO SEE, which I have been touring around the world with ever since. It was composed in France, where I had moved to that year. So I have been touring with an orchestra of 100 electric guitars for over 17 years now.

A recent piece in this genre was commissioned in 2005 by the City of Paris for an all night festival called La Nuit Blanche. It was for 400 electric guitars. We played a piece called A CRIMSON GRAIL MOVES TOO FAST TO SEE at Sacre Coeur in Paris, the concert lasted 12 hours, we had a blast! .

A new version of CRIMSON was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival in 2008, but unfortunately the performance was rained out. We eventually were able to do it the year after. The concert was recorded and released on Nonesuch Records in 2010.

Concurrent with all this, I started playing trumpet in 1983, and after ten years of learning how to play the damn thing, released my first record with me as a trumpet player on a UK label called Ninja Tune.

I switched to trumpet because I was losing my hearing playing guitar; also I was interested in jazz. My training on trumpet is completely in the jazz tradition, when I practice at home I play over bebop changes. But when I play out it tends to be over drum n bass or whatever current trend has come out in the context of electronica that sounds cool.

When I switched to trumpet, I kept all my electric guitar distortion devices, so my trumpet sounds quite close to a distorted electric guitar.

Aside from performances with my 100+ guitar orchestras, I am currently touring a version of GUITAR TRIO for between 6-10 electric guitars, el. bass and drums as well as my composition Die Donnergötter. I come to the city the piece is being performed in and work with the local luminaries of the town I am playing in and we mount a performance. You can get links to some of the performances by checking out my blog on myspace or going to http://www.rhyschatham.net

New releases of my trumpet works have come out this year (2011) on Northern Spy Records, entitled Outdoor Spell, and on Primary Information, entitled Rêve Parisien.

I currently live in Paris, France...

(This site last mucked about with on 3 Decemberr 2011)

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Influences:

Many influences coming out of Amercian contemporary music like John Cage, Tony Conrad, Eliane Radigue, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Morton Subotnick.

From rock, the Ramones, Iggy Pop, John Cale, Black Sabbath, early AC/DC.

From jazz Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman.

From electronica I like many people, I suppose Atari Teenage Riot and Ed Rush were particularly inspiring. Also my good friends from Cold Cut, who single-handedly got me into playing with flexistential, scratchtological downtempo grooves!

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