Max Richter and The American Contemporary Music Ensemble

Born on 22 March 1966 in Germany, and studied composition and piano at the University of Edinburgh, The Royal Academy of Music and with Italian composer, Luciano Berio. Once he finished his studies, he co-founded Piano Circus, a contemporary classical ensemble with which he was a part of for ten years. The group was eventually signed to Decca/Argo records and released five albums. In 1996 Richter also collaborated with electronic music band, Future Sound Of London, on their album “Dead Cities” both contributing as a pianist and co-writer; this collaboration lasted for another two years and had Richter also contributing to two more albums.

In 2002 Richter released his first solo album entitled “Memoryhouse.” The album was recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and was a sort of experimental “documentary” music, combining poetry, ambient sounds and voices. Following the success of “Memoryhouse” Richter released his second album, “The Blue Notebooks” in 2004. The album, which garnered high praise from Pitchfork, featured actress Tilda Swinton reading from Franz Kafka’s “Blue Octavo” and other shadow journals. With two years between them, a third and fourth solo album were released, both of which maintained the stylistic art forward music.

Richter also contributed to film soundtracks; Richter worked on his first film score for “Waltz With Bashir” in 2007. In 2008 he not only composed music for the independent film, “Henry May Long” but also released his fourth studio album entitled “24 Postcards In Full Colour.” In addition the production of Infra, part of a Royal Ballet-commissioned collaboration that Richter wrote the score for. He later released the studio recorded “Infra” and his soundscape “The Anthropocine” formed part of Darren Almond's film installation at the White Cube gallery in London. In 2012 Richter recomposed a version of Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” which topped the itunes charts in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.