Reynold Tharp is a talented young composer who is writing me a new 10 minute piece for solo piano. He's got an exceptional pair of ears and always manages to come up with beautiful, intricate, fresh sounds. I just received the first few pages (November 20th) and can't wait to see the rest!
Program notes I found about him said the following:
"The music of Reynold Tharp has been praised for its imaginative use of instrumental colors and orchestration, rhythmic flexibility, careful craftsmanship, and dramatic and emotional power."
Recent commissions
- San Fransico Contemporary Music Players
- A new piece for eight players for the 2007-08 season.
- Ivan Ilic (piano)
- Reynold is currently finishing "Littoral," a new work for solo piano. I'll premiere it on February 16th, 2007 at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff before touring it throughout South and West Wales.
I'll also give the French premiere on June 21st, 2007 at the American Foundation in Paris. They just bought a beautiful new Steinway D. - The Klein International String Competition in San Francisco
- The competition commissioned "Vertiginous Lines" (solo violin), "Fog Lines" (solo viola), and "Wavering Lines" (solo cello) for the 2006 competition.
- Jonathan Keeble (flute) and Ann Yeung (harp)
- A new duo for flute and harp for two faculty members at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (in progress)
- Berkeley's Edge Festival
- The Festival commissioned "Mountains and Seas" for piano and percussion (2005)
Listen to Reynold's music
- Cold Horizon
- Cold Horizon for Chamber Orchestra
- Etching
- Etching for English Horn, Clarinet, Viola and Piano
Reviews of Reynold's music
- San Francisco Classical Voice
- "The highlights of the evening concert were the first two pieces, by Reynold Tharp: Cold...is an exploration of icy tone colors, full of deep, arctic resonances. Mountains...has much more rhythmic drive and kinetic energy. It displays a great joyousness in resonance and the pure sensation of vibrating, pulsating sound. Of all the pieces on the concert, it was the most visceral and alive."
- New Music Box
- "Reynold Tharp's Cold Horizon was exquisitely gestural and tightly paced. Metallic percussion and microtonal writing for the orchestra proved to be effective in defining a sound world that contained a wealth of possibilities waiting to be unpacked."
- San Francisco Classical Voice
- "Donatoni's influence was also heard in the fine surface details of "Etching," completed two years ago by 26-year-old American composer Reynold Tharp. Tharp attributes his primary inspiration to the intricacies of etchings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. One can almost see the fine branching lines of a Tiepolo in the interwoven parts. The work's discrete opening segments bloom in a final section in which mingling lines separate before elegantly dissolving."
Reynold's awards
- George Ladd Prize for 2 years of study in Paris
(Berkeley) - Joseph Burns Prize
(Columbia) - William Schuman Prize
(BMI) - Nicola de Lorenzo Prize, 3 times
(Berkeley) - Herbert Elwell Prize
(Oberlin)
Reynold's teaching
In addition to having taught harmony and theory at Berkeley during his doctoral studies, Reynold has taught at the following institutions.
- University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
- Having taught there in 2005, Reynold will return to UIUC in the Fall of 2006 to take a position on the Composition Faculty. I love the trumpet intro of this page...
- Northwestern University School of Music
- Reynold is currently finishing up as Lecturer in Composition at Northwestern.
- San Francisco State University
- At SFSU he taught analysis and 20th century music in 2003.
Reynold's studies
- The PhD program in composition at UC Berkeley
- Reynold received his M.A. and PhD in composition at Cal in 2003; his dissertation was "Cold Horizon" for Chamber Orchestra. He killed his qualifying exams: "highest distinction" in 1998.
- The undergraduate program in composition at Oberlin
- Just so he wouldn't get bored, he also took a B.A. in history at Oberlin College.
- IRCAM
- Reyold studied computer music at IRCAM while in Paris on the Ladd Prize.
