Another Christopher O’Riley interview

Posted on April 2nd, 2004.

‘Patriot News’ published an interview with Christopher O’Riley with the title ‘Radio host and pianist redefines classical’. Some bits and pieces:

[..] His recording earned notice in Rolling Stone magazine and has made him a hit among Radiohead’s most ardent listeners. One reviewer on Amazon.com called the recording “a must for obsessive Radiohead fans”.
“It’s not like this is from Mars,” O’Riley said. “I’ve gotten a good response. I’m trying to tap into an audience that isn’t exploited — for lack of a better word — at Market Square Concerts. But everybody will come away from this with the same thing they would from any recital I’ve done over the last 10 years.”

The harmonic and textural dimensions of Radiohead’s music happened to appeal to him, he said. He said the songs lend themselves naturally to piano. He’s had the same reaction to R.E.M. and singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.

O’Riley said his work transcribing Radiohead consisted “mostly of negotiating and redistributing. I had to try to create the aura of extra sound from an electric guitar.” [Click the link below to read the full interview]
[thanks Alex]

Radio host and pianist redefines classical

ZACHARY LEWIS Of The Patriot-News
28 March 2004

Pianist Christopher O’Riley continues to forge an individual path in music.

He is making a career not only as a concert pianist, but also as a radio personality who presents himself as an advocate for the next generation of classical musicians.

“I think it’s a real advantage, them having the idea that you’re their friend,” O’Riley said, by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “That’s always something people strive for in music … but in other situations, it comes off a little more manufactured.

“Classical music is one area in which personality is not first and foremost.”

On Thursday, the multitalented performer returns to central Pennsylvania in the concert pianist mode. He’ll perform a solo recital, a Market Square Concerts special event, at the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts.

O’Riley also plans to acknowledge his National Public Radio show, “From the Top,” by turning over a pre-concert event to pianist Mark McMillan, a former guest on the program. McMillan, an 11th-grader from Loysville, will perform Liszt’s “Paganini” variations.

The first half of O’Riley’s program, a Suite by Rameau and the Brahms-Handel Variations, is eclectic on its own merits.

O’Riley will devote the second half of the concert to selections from his latest recording of his piano transcriptions of songs by Radiohead, a British rock band.

He admits the concept of playing rock is rare for a “classical” pianist, but says music is music. He makes no apologies for devoting his energy to music that is, in his words, “very contrapuntal for a three-guitar ensemble, a confluence of interesting voices.”

Besides, his recording earned notice in Rolling Stone magazine and has made him a hit among Radiohead’s most ardent listeners. One reviewer on Amazon.com called the recording “a must for obsessive Radiohead fans.”

“It’s not like this is from Mars,” O’Riley said. “I’ve gotten a good response.

“I’m trying to tap into an audience that isn’t exploited — for lack of a better word — at Market Square Concerts. But everybody will come away from this with the same thing they would from any recital I’ve done over the last 10 years.”

So why Radiohead? (Hint: The answer has nothing to do with the fact that O’Riley is a radio-head.)

O’Riley said his work transcribing Radiohead consisted “mostly of negotiating and redistributing. I had to try to create the aura of extra sound from an electric guitar.”

The reason O’Riley is so willing to open himself up to other kinds of music might have something to do with his widely shared view that “the classical music audience is dying.”

That statement is not as gloomy as it sounds, he said. It simply means that change is under way.

O’Riley said artists should be confident enough to try new things and get away from being “married to a certain genre.”

“If you present something seriously, then people will listen to it and evaluate it seriously,” he said.