Anthony Paul De Ritis always has something new for the ears. Check out his electric guitar stylings and more in DEVOLUTION
As we all know, the cost of orchestral recordings is a major factor for record companies. This has forced record labels’ owners to pull up their sleeves and tackle the economic effort of the recordings: as evidenced with the New Amsterdam Brittelle composers, Snider and Greenstein or with the orchestras of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra or Louisville who have elevated their organizational standards while keeping in mind the precariousness of the old system.
Anthony Paul De Ritis is chairman of the composition department at Northeastern University in Boston. He studied with Richard Felciano and Jorge Liderman and over the summers worked with Spectralist Tristan Murail at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau near Paris. Other significant professors included William Duckworth and Kyle Gann as an undergraduate at Bucknell University, where he also had a concentration in business administration; and he has a Masters in electronic music from Ohio University.
"The mixture of influences, references and textures is both blindingly apparent and blindingly gorgeous." – WQXR Radio
"…enterprising…" – Gramophone Magazine
"I should think that any lover of new music would really like this and most people would at least be transfixed by the creativity…orchestration is lush…wholly engaging…" –
Audiophile Audition
"The performance, under the direction of Gil Rose, is a blast, hitting the score's marks with a kind of joyfully volatile precision." – New Music Box
The three works on this enterprising release showcase a genuinely American composer, Anthony Paul De Ritis, professor and chair of the music department at Northeastern University in Boston, whose music lies rooted in its determination to meld science with humanity. To do so, De Ritis draws on the resources of his acoustic-electronic laboratory and applies them with a healthy enthusiasm for engaging tunes and harmonies, lively beat and a love of Technicolor.
Questions of "real" or "fake" are dialectically put aside on the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's new recording of music by Anthony De Ritis, music in which, in a way, everything is real and fake all at the same time. Or, more precisely: this is music which is constantly, enthusiastically directing your attention to the materials out of which it’s fashioned. The manufactured nature of music, which the classical music tradition tries to misdirect away with notions of transcendence and sublimity, is here part of the whole point.
Sometimes when a theme presents itself, the best action is to run with it! This edition of the NewMusicBox Mix consists almost entirely of music for string instruments. Directly below you will find a link to download a folder containing the eight tracks of the mix. In addition, each track is streamed separately on this page, with information about the recordings and purchasing links to encourage further exploration and continued listening.
Anthony Paul De Ritis is the chair of the Department of Music and Multimedia Studies at Northeastern University. I have heard good things about De Ritis’s music and its reliance on an eclectic, crossover combination of sound sources as well his skill at writing captivating music that unfolds in real time. De Ritis had studied with Kyle Gann, with whom I am familiar and also philosophy with Richard Fleming. De Ritis is, clearly, a bit of a visionary, himself and I find all three of these pieces new, refreshing and fascinating to listen to.
Listening to Anthony Paul De Ritis's Devolution is somewhat akin to watching a Tarsem film: The mixture of influences, references and textures is both blindingly apparent and blindingly gorgeous.
Some compositions by Anthony De Ritis, professor and chair of the Department of Music in Northeastern's College of Arts, Media and Design, may not appeal to all classical music fans. But that's just fine by him.
"There are people who truly hate the concept that a DJ and a symphony orchestra could meet," De Ritis explained. "People who think an orchestra should not reflect the popular music of today often dislike such combinations. But others see this as a fresh starting point, one which can get a whole new generation interested in classical music."
