Anthony De Ritis

Prior to attending U.C. Berkeley, Mr. De Ritis studied composition at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, taking master classes with Phillipe Manoury, Tristan Murail, and Gilbert Amy. He received his Master of Music from Ohio University, where he studied with Mark Phillips, and his Bachelor of Arts in Music from Bucknell University, where he studied with William Duckworth. At Bucknell Mr. De Ritis also completed a concentration in Business Administration, and a minor in Philosophy under the direction of Richard Fleming, who continues to serve as his mentor in his pursuit of interdisciplinary methods to learning.

Mr. De Ritis's composition Legerdemain, for large orchestra, YAMAHA SY99 synthesizer, and real-time signal processing was written for Jung-Ho Pak, former director of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, and present Director of the San Diego Symphony. Legerdemain is chiefly an acoustic orchestration of electronic music improvisations. In the performance of this work, the orchestral ensemble is extended with the addition of five microphones used to animate the sonic space: one inside of the piano, two set directly at the woodwinds, and two overhead picking up the resonance of the entire orchestra. Each signal is controlled and processed in real-time by a keyboardist MIDI'd to a Macintosh computer running software written in the MAX programming language.

Mr. De Ritis is extremely fond of collaborating with theater and dance. In March, 1997, he co-composed with Judah Gold (lead guitarist with JGB, formerly the Jerry Garcia Band) an original score for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Berkeley's Center for Theater Arts. He received the Mark Goodson Award for Distinguished Theatrical Talent for his efforts.

As a violist Mr. De Ritis has performed with many Northern California professional ensembles, including the Sacramento Philharmonic, the Redding, Vallejo, and Modesto Symphonies, the Marin Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, and the American Classical Soloists, with whom he performed on a CD-recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He has also been involved with numerous contemporary music ensembles as a conductor, performer, and MIDI technician, including the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and numerous performances at Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. His ensemble, the Paolo String Quartet, was hired by the Chief of Protocol for the City of Oakland to perform for Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, as part of the "Britain Meets the Bay Festival."

Mr. De Ritis served on the board of directors for two Bay Area arts organizations: CAPA, the Council for the Arts for the city of Palo Alto, CA; and IMAGE, the Independent Media Artists Group, a 300-member film, video, and multimedia networking. He was the Associate Director of their Fourth Annual Film Festival, IMAGEfest '97, held January 9-10, 1998, at the Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto.

In 1995 Mr. De Ritis was hired by Berkeley's Cal Performances to manage and contract 112 music professionals for the American premiere of Ocean 1-95 with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Commissioned by the Cunningham Dance Foundation, the kunstenFESTIVALdesArts and the Holland Festival, Ocean 1-95 was conceived by John Cage and Merce Cunningham, with choreography by Merce Cunningham, electronic music by David Tudor, orchestral music by Andrew Culver, and design and lighting by Marsha Skinner.

Mr. De Ritis composed original music for the Macintosh computer game, Step On It, which was awarded the 1997 Macworld Arcade Game of the Year.

Currently Mr. De Ritis is working on an original score for a production of Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, under the direction of Nancy Kindelan, professor in the Department of Theatre at Northeastern University.