- WEBSITE : http://www.richardmarriott.com/
- RESIDENCY DATES : Feb 1st 2010 to Feb 28th 2010
- PRACTICE : Composer
- FROM : USA
Richard Marriott has been active as a composer, musician and instrument builder for more than 30 years. Always engaged by the interaction of music, history, culture, technology and ideas, he has found himself increasingly drawn to opera (opera in its most inclusive sense) as a means of expression. He has also composed extensively for film, television, dance, theater, and video games.
His opera "Divide Light" was premiered in 2008 at Montalvo Arts Center. This 80 minute work, conceived by visual artist Lesley Dill with text by Emily Dickinson, is scored for choir, soloists and string quartet. Another opera, "Lan Ling", based on an ancient Chinese story with libretto by Xu Ying and Dong Fangfang, is written for Chinese and Western voices with orchestra. "Godmachine" which incorporates interactive electronics to allow the audience to determine some elements of the plot, is written for four soloists and international orchestration.
He is the founder of the Club Foot Orchestra, the premiere ensemble for live music performance with silent film. His scores for "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", "Nosferatu", "Metropolis", "Sherlock Jr", "Legong, Dance of the Virgins" and other films, have been performed at venues such as Lincoln Center, Smithsonian Institution, BAM, Morgan Library and Castro Theater.
Composing credits also include music for the feature "Rising Sun", the score for the Academy Award nominated "Silver into Gold", music for the CBS series "The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat" and numerous independent films.
He has worked with choreographer Della Davidson on six unique productions since 1991 and collaborated with Yoshiko Chuma ("Page Out of Order") and Yin Mei ("City of Paper"). Works for theater include "Seven Visions" with ShadowLight Theater, "Happy Hour Becomes Electra"
and "University of Alaska", with Overtone Theater and the scores for three California Shakespeare productions. He was a staff composer for Atari Games (1992-1997) and also composed for dozens of video games under contract.
He performs on brass and woodwinds, especially trombone and Balinese suling. His inventions include the "Voltage-controlled Casio", much used by The Residents among others, and elaborate wind instrument modifications. In compositions for Balinese gamelan such as "Gong Bone" he has championed the use of Western brass in an Asian context.
His work has been supported by the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Music Fund and Meet the Composer. His teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Dominick Argento, Ali Akbar Khan, Masayuki Koga, Serge Tchrepnin.
