Reynold Tharp (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) will speak about his recent music, including orchestral music (Wide sea, changeful heaven, 2012), ensemble music (San Francisco Night, 2008), and chamber music (Chaparral, 2010), focusing on large-scale narrative approaches to form, harmony, rhythmic processes, and the roles of orchestration and texture in his music.

The music of Reynold Tharp has been described as “tone painting at its most adroit” evoked with “a prismatic palette” (Financial Times), and “gorgeous…a sensuous evocation of colors and atmospheres…. Not content to write textures that are merely interesting or surprising, Tharp concocts sounds that are also ravishing and intoxicating” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

Tharp was born in Indiana and grew up in southern California. After early training as a pianist, he studied history and composition at Oberlin College and Conservatory, and later earned a Ph.D. in composition at UC Berkeley, studying primarily with Richard Felciano and Jorge Liderman. As recipient of Berkeley’s Ladd Fellowship he spent two years in Paris studying composition with Philippe Leroux and orchestration with Marc-André Dalbavie, and was selected for the month-long intensive course in computer music at IRCAM.

Free, non-ticketed (a Valente Lecture)