composer

Described as a "genuinely American composer" by Gramophone, Anthony Paul De Ritis is Professor and Chair of the Music Department at Northeastern University in Boston and is jointly appointed in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group in Northeastern's D'Amore-McKim School of Business. His music has been called "groundbreaking," "ultra-exotic," and "really cool," and has received performances nationally and internationally, including at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Harvard's Sanders Theatre, Yale's Woolsey Hall, Taipei's Zhong Shan Hall, Beijing's Yugong Yishan, Seoul's KT Art Hall, and UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

De Ritis's CD Devolution, described as a "tour de force" by Gramophone, was released in June 2012 by the 5-time Grammy nominated Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the baton of Gil Rose, and was the WQXR Q2 "Album of the Week" for June 11, 2012. Devolution features three of De Ritis’s symphonic works, Chords of Dust, Legerdemain, and the work for which the CD is titled, Devolution: a Concerto for DJ and Symphony Orchestra, featuring Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid as soloist. De Ritis also works frequently with Chinese traditional instruments, including works for pipa virtuosi Min Xiao-Fen and Wu Man. In Fall 2011 De Ritis was as Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China, and was invited to be a Master of Beijing's DeTao Masters Academy in the fields of music and the creative industries.

De Ritis completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied with Richard Felciano and Jorge Liderman, and served three years as a teaching assistant to David Wessel at Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) (1992-1997). He received his M.M. in Electronic Music Composition from Ohio University under Mark Phillips (1990-1992) and his B.A. in Music with a concentration in Business Administration from Bucknell University, studying composition under William Duckworth, Jackson Hill and Kyle Gann, and philosophy with Richard Fleming (1986-1990). De Ritis engaged in summer study at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France under Phillipe Manoury, Tristan Murail, and Gilbert Amy (1991, 1992), the University of Southern California (1990) and New York University (1989). De Ritis also holds a Masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in high-tech from Northeastern University (2002), and in 2006 was named the Alumnus of the Year for the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University.

Performances

Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | April 21, 2018
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | October 12, 2014
Moonshine Room at Club Café | April 30, 2013
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | May 28, 2010
Sanders Theatre | May 19, 2007

News and Press

[Concert Review] Fuse Concert Review: Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s Surround Sound at Jordan Hall

Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) opened their season on Sunday afternoon with a typically generous and curious program, highlighting music for orchestra and electronics. Perhaps the most impressive takeaway – aside from the rich, musical diversity the afternoon’s three selections showcased – were the often almost imperceptible ways in which composers Ronald Bruce Smith, Anthony Paul de Ritis, and David Felder integrated the electronic and acoustic elements in their music.

The Arts Fuse Full review
[Concert Review] Rose, BMOP present electronically enhanced music at Jordan

Some instruments, once you’ve glimpsed them, stay with you. I’ll never forget my brief encounter with the emormous, room-filling RCA Mark II synthesizer, the first of its kind, built in the 1950s and bursting with period charisma, thanks to its towering stacks of vacuum-tube components and endless rows of knobs and dials. Its aura was so redolent of the early-Cold War era, it seemed that if composers like Milton Babbitt and Vladimir Ussachevsky had not kept it so busy, then maybe, just maybe, we might have beaten the Soviets into space.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Concert Review] Surrounded! De Ritis premiere reverberates at BMOP’s plugged-in opener

The best music deal in town this holiday weekend might have been “Surround Sound,” the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s concert Sunday afternoon at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.

Boston Classical Review Full review
[CD Review] American Record Guide reviews Anthony Paul De Ritis: Devolution

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.

American Record Guide Full review
[CD Review] Gramophone Magazine reviews Anthony Paul DeRitis: Devolution

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.

Gramophone Magazine Full review
[CD Review] Sounds Heard: Anthony Paul De Ritis—Devolution

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.

NewMusicBox Full review
[CD Review] New Music Box Mixtape featuring Anthony Paul De Ritis: Devolution

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.

New Music Box Full review
[CD Review] Audiophile Audition reviews Anthony Paul DeRitis: Devolution

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.

Audiophile Audition Full review
[CD Review] The Evolution Apparent in Anthony Paul De Ritis's 'Devolution'

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.

WQXR Full review
New spin on classical music

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."

Northeastern University Full review
[Concert Review] Classical Music Review: Boston Modern Orchestra Project

The Jordan Hall stage was crammed full of seventy players for the season’s final concert by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) on May 28. Under its artistic director Gil Rose, we heard music by five composers, the earliest dating from 1989. For two works the distinguished baritone Sanford Sylvan (b. 1953) was the soloist.

The Arts Fuse Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP's feast of new music

After giving each orchestra section a spotlight concert this season, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and artistic director Gil Rose brought a full symphonic complement to Jordan Hall on Friday, with a program to match: five canvases of splashy instrumentation. The complement was in fine form indeed, zealous and bold. New-music advocacy doesn’t get more luxurious.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Concert Review] BMOP proves that new music can be moving

On Friday, May 28, in Jordan Hall, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a.k.a. BMOP, presented its last concert of the season -— five works composed in the past 25 years, two of which featured the great baritone Sanford Sylvan. BMOP’s past season had featured concerts showcasing groups within the orchestra (strings in “Strings Attached,” percussion and keyboards in the “Big Bang” concert, winds in “Band in Boston”). For this concert, deploying the full orchestra, BMOP presented works by four living composers, all in attendance, and Orchestra Piece by Leon Kirchner, who died last fall.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer Full review
[Concert Review] Stylus reviews Full Score

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project commissions, performs, and records music of the twentieth and twenty first centuries exclusively, allowing listeners to hear full-sized orchestral performances of modern compositions, previously performed more typically by small groups like the Kronos Quartet and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble.

Stylus Full review
[Press Release] BMOP presents Full Score

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation's leading orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing, commissioning, and recording new music, will present its final concert of the 2009-10 season, Full Score, at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough Street), on Friday, May 28 at 8:00pm. After three instrument-centric performances ("Big Bang" for percussion, "Band in Boston" for winds, and "Strings Attached" for strings), the BMOP season will culminate with a full orchestral program uniting over 70 musicians and guest baritone Sanford Sylvan.

Full review
[Concert Review] Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra?

Anyone who caught the Ben Folds performance with the Boston Pops last week and was struck by the thinness of the meeting of musical worlds should have been there on Saturday night at Sanders Theatre to hear the Boston Modern Orchestra Project tee off on three bracingly imaginative works infused with rock ‘n’ roll and other popular styles.

The Boston Globe Full review
[News Coverage] Modern Orchesta blooms with Rose

Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project are nothing if not adventurous, playing all sorts of new music and bringing classical music to pubs and bars.

Tonight they take that spirit even further by performing Anthony De Ritis’ Devolution: A Concerto for DJ and Orchestra featuring DJ Spooky the Subliminal Kid; Steven Mackey’s Dreamhouse featuring electric guitars and vocalists; and the world premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s Hard Drive. The program, at Sanders Theatre, is part of the Celebrity Series Boston Marquee performances.

Full review
[News Coverage] Roll over, Beethoven

In the basement of the Masonic Hall in Porter Square, conductor Gil Rose is giving members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project fair warning. “This is going to get pretty loud,” he says.

The Boston Globe Full review
[News Coverage] Northeastern University composer bridges musical worlds with unique score featuring DJ Spooky

Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) will perform Devolution, an original piece composed by Northeastern professor Anthony De Ritis and featuring DJ Spooky (Paul D. Miller) on May 19th at 8 p.m. at the Sanders Theater, as part of the Bank of America Celebrity Series.

Full review
[Press Release] BMOP premieres rock-and-roll inspired works by Evan Ziporyn, Steven Mackey, and Anthony DeRitis

Presented by the Bank of America Celebrity Series, and its President and Executive Director, Martha H. Jones, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) celebrates the final concert of its 10th anniversary season with a Boston Marquee performance May 19th @ 8:00pm, at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre (45 Quincy Street, Cambridge). As the nation's only orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing, commissioning, and recording new music of the 21st century, BMOP turns its focus to American composers inspired by rock and roll.

Full review
[Press Release] BMOP announces 10th anniversary season

BMOP announces that its 10th anniversary season will open on November 3, 2006 at Jordan Hall. For 10 years BMOP has been Boston's only orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording new music. Led by founding Artistic Director Gil Rose, BMOP is considered to be the premier orchestra for new music in the country.

Full review
[News Coverage] New Orleans benefit kicks off new Celebrity Series season

The 68th season of Bank of America Celebrity Series opens with ‘‘A Cajun Celebration” Oct. 15, featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in a benefit performance for the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund and the Celebrity Series Arts, Education and Community Program.

The season brings 74 performances in 11 venues by performers including major dance companies, orchestras, pianists, singers, chamber music ensembles, and world music, jazz, popular, and folk artists.

The Boston Globe Full review